Кадзуо Исигуро - Klara and the Sun

‘Hey. What’s with this light anyway?’ she said.

The Sun continued relentlessly to shine on her, and she shifted till she was on her back, propped up by the pillows and headboard.

‘What’s going on?’

‘How are you feeling, honey?’ the Mother asked in a whisper, staring at Josie as if in fear.

Josie slumped back against her pillows till she was almost looking up at the ceiling. But there was an obvious new strength to the way she’d maneuvered herself.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Is the blind stuck or something?’

The loose piece of house structure was still banging somewhere, and when I next glanced out of the window, the darkness was once more spreading across the sky. Then even as we watched, the Sun’s patterns faded over Josie, till she was lying there in the gray of an overcast morning.

‘Josie?’ the Mother said. ‘How do you feel?’

Josie looked at her with a tired expression, shifting herself to face us better. The Mother, seeing this, moved forward, perhaps with the intention of making Josie lie down again. But even as she reached Josie, she appeared to change her mind, and began to assist Josie in finding a more comfortable sitting posture.

‘You look better, honey,’ the Mother said.

‘Look, what’s going on?’ Josie asked. ‘Why’s everyone here? What are you all staring at?’

‘Hey, Josie,’ Rick said suddenly, his voice filled with excitement. ‘You look a complete mess.’

‘Thanks. You’re looking pretty good yourself.’ Then she said: ‘But you know, I do feel better. Kind of dizzy though.’

‘That’s enough,’ the Mother said. ‘Just take it easy. Do you want to drink something?’

‘Water maybe?’

‘Okay, let’s assume nothing,’ the Mother said. ‘We have to take this one step at a time.’

PART SIX

The Sun’s special nourishment proved as effective for Josie as it had for Beggar Man, and after the dark sky morning, she grew not only stronger, but from a child into an adult.

As the seasons – and the years – went by, Mr McBain’s vehicles cut down the tall grass in all three fields, leaving them a pale brown color. The barn now looked taller and more sharply outlined, but Mr McBain still didn’t build additional walls for it, and on cloudless evenings, as the Sun went towards his resting place, I was still able to see him sinking to the far side of the barn before fading into the ground.

Josie worked hard on her tutorials, and there were many arguments about which college she might go to. Josie and the Mother each held strong views on the matter, but Atlas Brookings – now Rick no longer wished to go there – was rarely mentioned. The Father seemed to agree with neither Josie’s nor the Mother’s ideas, and once turned up at the house to make his points more strongly. It was the only time I saw him come to the house, and although I was myself happy to see him again, we all understood he’d infringed a rule in doing so.

Josie herself went away from the house much more over this period, sometimes for several days at a time, to visit other young adults, or to attend retreats. These trips, I knew, were an important part of her preparations for college, but she preferred not to talk much about them to me, so they remained largely outside of my knowledge.

Rick had continued to come regularly in the early days after Josie’s recovery, but as the time passed, and certainly by when Mr McBain cut the grass, he was coming far less. This was partly because of Josie being away so often, but Rick too had become busy with his projects. He’d bought a car, which he’d named ‘the Wreck’, and would regularly drive to the city to meet his new friends. Rick preferred to leave the Wreck in the loose stones area because, he said, it was easier for him to start his journey from there than to negotiate the narrow and circuitous route out from his own house. So it was increasingly the presence of the Wreck, rather than Josie, that brought Rick to us, and it was there on the loose stones that I had my last conversation with him.

Both Josie and the Mother were away that morning, and so when I heard his tread outside, I saw no reason not to go out and exchange greetings. He wasn’t in his usual hurry to drive away, so we talked for several minutes, a light breeze moving over us, Rick leaning against the body of the Wreck, while I stood just a little way away. The sky was overcast that morning, and that was perhaps why Rick was reminded of that day.

‘Do you remember, Klara,’ he asked, ‘that morning the weather went really strange, and the Sun came right into Josie’s room?’

‘Of course. I’ll never forget that morning.’

‘I often think about it now. It almost seems like that was when Josie first started to get better. Maybe I’ve got this all wrong. But when I look back, it almost feels that way.’

‘Yes. I agree.’

‘You remember that day? We were all so exhausted. And in despair. Then everything turned around. I always wanted to ask you, except you seemed so closed up about it. I always wanted to ask if what happened that morning, all that strange weather, everything else, if it had to do with the other stuff. You know. Me carrying you over the fields, you making some secret deal. At the time, I thought it was all, well, AF superstition. Something just to bring us good luck. But these days, I keep wondering if there was more to it.’

He was watching me carefully, but I said nothing for quite a long time.

‘Unfortunately,’ I said, eventually, ‘I don’t dare speak about this matter, even today. It was such a special favor, and if I speak about it to anyone, even just to Rick, my fear is that the help Josie received will be taken back.’

‘Then stop there. Don’t say anything. I don’t want to open up even a tiny chance of her getting ill again. But the doctors always say once you get through the stage she did, you’re safe.’

‘All the same, we must be cautious, because Josie’s was such a special case. But since Rick is now talking about this matter, perhaps I might mention something related to it that’s been worrying me.’

‘And what’s that, Klara?’

‘Rick and Josie still show kindness to each other. And yet, they’re now preparing such different futures.’

He turned towards the rise in the road, his hand playing with the Wreck’s wing mirror. ‘I think I follow you,’ he said. ‘I’m remembering that day, the second time we went over to the barn. How before we went, you became very serious and asked if our love was genuine. The love between me and Josie. And I think I told you it was real. Real and everlasting. So I’m guessing that’s what you’re now worrying about.’

‘Rick is correct. It brings me anxiety to see Rick and Josie with such separate plans.’

He gently prodded the loose stones before him with his foot. Then he said: ‘Look. I don’t want you to say anything to put Josie’s health at risk again. But let me say this much. When you passed it on that Josie and I really loved each other, that was the truth at the time. No one can claim you misled or tricked them. But now we’re no longer kids, we have to wish each other the best and go our different ways. It couldn’t have worked out, me going to college, trying to compete with all those lifted kids. I’ve got my own plans now, and that’s how it should be. But that was no lie, Klara. And in a funny way, it still isn’t a lie now.’

‘I wonder what Rick can mean by that?’

‘I suppose I’m saying Josie and I will always be together at some level, some deeper one, even if we go out there and don’t see each other any more. I can’t speak for her. But once I’m out there, I know I’ll always keep searching for someone just like her. At least like the Josie I once knew. So it wasn’t ever a deception, Klara. Whoever that was you were dealing with back then, if they could see right into my heart, and right into Josie’s, they’d know you weren’t trying to pull some fast one.’