Кадзуо Исигуро - Klara and the Sun

—

I entered the Second Bedroom carefully and found Josie sleeping soundly. The room was more narrow than the bedroom at home, but the ceiling was higher, and because Josie had left the blind halfway up, there were shapes falling across the wardrobe and the wall next to it. I went to the window and looked out into the night to establish the path the Sun might take in the morning, and how easy it would be for him to look in. Like the room itself, the window was tall and narrow. Surprisingly close by were the backs of two large buildings, and I could decipher drainpipes marking vertical lines, and repeating windows, most of them empty or blanked out by blinds. Between the two buildings I could see the street beyond, and could tell that by the morning, it would be a busy one. Even now there was a steady flow of vehicles crossing the gap. Above the piece of street was a tall column of night sky, and I estimated the Sun would have no difficulty pouring in his special nourishment from it, narrow though it was. I realized too how important it was that I remain alert, ready at the first sign to raise the blind fully.

‘Klara?’ Josie stirred behind me. ‘Is Mom back too?’

‘She won’t be long. She’s just driving Rick and Miss Helen to their hotel.’

She appeared to return into sleep. But a few moments later I heard the bedclothes move again.

‘I’d never let anything bad happen to you.’ Her breaths became longer and I thought she’d fallen asleep again. Then she said in a clearer voice: ‘Nothing’s changing.’

She’d now become more awake, so I said: ‘Did the Mother discuss with you some new idea?’

‘Well, I don’t think it was an idea . I told her nothing like that’s ever going to happen.’

‘I wonder what it was the Mother suggested.’

‘Didn’t she already talk to you about it? It was nothing. Some vague stuff traveling through her head.’

I wondered if she would say anything more. Then the duvet moved again.

‘She was trying to…offer something, I guess. She said she could give up her job and stay with me the whole time. If I wanted that. She said she could become the one who was always with me. She’d do that if I really wanted it, she’d do it and let her job go, but I said, what would happen to Klara? And she was like, we wouldn’t need Klara any more because she would be with me the whole time. You could tell it wasn’t anything she’d thought through. But she kept asking, like I had to decide, so in the end I told her, look, Mom, this wouldn’t work. You don’t want to give up your job and I don’t want to give up Klara. That was just about all of it. It’s not going to happen and Mom agrees.’

We were quiet for some time after that, Josie hidden in the shadows while I continued to stand at the window.

‘Perhaps,’ I said eventually, ‘the Mother thought if she stayed with Josie all the time, Josie would be less lonely.’

‘Who says I’m lonely?’

‘If that were true, if Josie really would be less lonely with the Mother, then I’d happily go away.’

‘But who says I’m lonely? I’m not lonely.’

‘Perhaps all humans are lonely. At least potentially.’

‘Look, Klara, this was just a shitty idea Mom was having. I was asking her earlier about the portrait, and she got herself into a big knot and came up with this idea. Except it wasn’t an idea, it wasn’t anything. So please can we forget about it?’

She became quiet again, then she was asleep. I decided that if she woke up again, I should say something to prepare her for what might happen in the morning, at least to ensure she did nothing to impede his special help. But now, perhaps because I was in the room with her, her sleep continued to deepen, and eventually I left the window to stand by the wardrobe, from where I knew I’d see the first signs of the Sun’s return.

—

We sat in the same positions as on the journey coming in. The height of the seat backs meant I could see the Mother only partially as she drove, and Miss Helen hardly at all except when she peered around her seat to emphasize what she was saying. Once – we were still in the city’s slow morning traffic – Miss Helen turned to us in this way and said:

‘No, Ricky, dear, I don’t want you to say anything else unpleasant about him. You don’t know him at all and you don’t understand. How could you?’ Then her face went away, but her voice continued: ‘I suppose I said a lot of things myself last night. But this morning I realize how unfair that was. What right do I have to expect anything from him?’

Miss Helen had appeared to address this last question to the Mother, but the Mother seemed far away. As she drove us through another intersection, the Mother murmured: ‘Paul isn’t so bad. I think sometimes I’m too hard on him. He’s not a bad guy. Today I feel sorry for him.’

‘It’s funny,’ Miss Helen said, ‘but this morning, I woke up with more hope. I feel it’s quite possible Vance will still help. He rather worked himself up last night, but once he calms down and reflects, he may well decide he wants to be decent. He likes, you see, to nurture an image of himself as a very decent person.’

Rick stirred beside me. ‘I’ve told you, Mum. I’m not having anything else to do with that man. And neither should you.’

‘Helen,’ the Mother said, ‘is this really getting you anywhere? Going round and round this way? Why not just wait and see. Why torture yourself? You both did your best.’

Josie, on the other side of Rick from me, took Rick’s hand and entwined her fingers with his. She smiled at him encouragingly, but also, I thought, a little sadly. Rick returned the smile, and I wondered if they were exchanging secret messages just with their gazes.

I turned back to the window beside me, resting my forehead against the glass. I’d been watching and waiting since the earliest signs of dawn. But though the Sun’s first rays had come straight into the Second Bedroom through the gap between the buildings, I hadn’t for a second mistaken this for his special nourishment. I’d remembered of course that I should be grateful as always, but hadn’t been able to keep the disappointment from my mind. Then all through the early breakfast, and the packing, and as the Mother moved through the Friend’s Apartment checking security, I’d continued to watch and wait. And now, leaning forward and gazing past Rick and Josie, I could see the Sun, still on his morning ascent, flashing between the tall buildings as we moved past them. I thought then about the Father, closing the door of this very car, looking beyond me towards the yard and the Cootings Machine, saying, ‘Don’t worry, I heard it. The little fizzing sound. That’s the telltale signal. That monster won’t rise again.’ And then a moment later, his face looming in front of mine, his voice asking: ‘Are you okay? Can you see my fingers? How many do you see?’ and I experienced again, as I’d done all morning, a wave of anxiety that the Sun wouldn’t keep the promise he’d made in Mr McBain’s barn.

‘Listen, Rick,’ the Mother said. ‘Never mind what else happened last night, your work, your portfolio , got a thumbs up. You have to take heart from that. That’s all the more reason to believe in yourself.’

‘Mom, please,’ Josie said. ‘Rick doesn’t need big lectures just now.’ The adults couldn’t see, but she tightened her grip on Rick’s hand, and once again smiled at him. He gazed back at Josie, then said:

‘I appreciate that, Mrs Arthur. You’re always being kind to me. Thank you.’

‘There’s no telling,’ Miss Helen said. ‘No telling with Vance.’

I’d been aware for a few moments of the tall building now approaching on my side. It shared some characteristics with the RPO Building, but if anything was even taller, and because the traffic had slowed right down, I could study it carefully. The Sun was casting his rays onto its front, and one section of it had become like the Sun’s mirror, throwing back an intense reflection of his morning light. The building’s many windows had been organized into rows, vertical and horizontal, and yet the result was disorder, the rows often lining up crookedly, sometimes even running into each other. Within some of the windows, I saw office workers moving across, sometimes coming right up to the glass to gaze down at the street. But many of the windows were hard to see at all because of a gray mist drifting past them, and then in the next instant, as the Mother brought the car forward a little more, I saw through a gap between neighboring vehicles the Machine, sitting in its own space, protected from the oncoming traffic by the overhaul men’s barriers. The Machine was pumping out Pollution from its three funnels, and the start of its name – the letters ‘C-O-O’ – was there on its body. And even as I felt disappointment flood my mind, I was able to observe that this was not the same machine the Father and I had destroyed in the yard. Its body was a different shade of yellow, its dimensions a little greater – and its ability to create Pollution more than a match for the first Cootings Machine.