Кадзуо Исигуро - Klara and the Sun

‘You’ll remember, Klara, how much I’ve always been fascinated by AFs. I’ve always regarded you as our friends. A vital source of education and enlightenment. But as you know, there are people out there who worry about you. People who are scared and resentful.’

‘Henry,’ the Mother said. ‘Please get to the point.’

‘Okay. Here it is. Klara, the fact is, there’s growing and widespread concern about AFs right now. People saying how you’ve become too clever. They’re afraid because they can’t follow what’s going on inside any more. They can see what you do. They accept that your decisions, your recommendations, are sound and dependable, almost always correct. But they don’t like not knowing how you arrive at them. That’s where it comes from, this backlash, this prejudice. So we have to fight back. We have to say to them, okay, you’re worried because you don’t understand how AFs think. Fine, then let’s go take a look under the hood. Let’s reverse-engineer. What you don’t like are sealed black boxes. Okay, let’s open them. Once we see inside, not only do things get a lot less scary, we’ll learn. Learn amazing new things. So this is where you come in, Klara. Those of us on your side, we’re looking for help, for volunteers. We’ve already succeeded in opening a number of black boxes, but we really need to open up a whole lot more. You AFs, you’re magnificent. We’re discovering things we’d never have believed possible. That’s why I’m here today. I’ve never forgotten you, Klara. I know you’ll be uniquely useful to us. Please, will you help?’

He was staring at me so I said: ‘I’d like to assist. So long as it doesn’t inconvenience Josie or her mother…’

‘Wait a minute.’ The Mother moved swiftly around the coffee table until she was standing beside me. ‘This isn’t at all what we talked about over the phone, Henry.’

‘I just wanted to ask Klara, that’s all. This is a chance for her to make a lasting contribution…’

‘Klara deserves better than that.’

‘You may be right there, Chrissie. And I may have badly misjudged this. Even so, now I’m here, and Klara’s standing in front of me, do I have your permission just to ask her?’

‘No, Henry, you don’t. Klara deserves better. She deserves her slow fade.’

‘But we have work to do here. We have to resist this backlash…’

‘Then go resist it elsewhere. Find some other black boxes to prize open. Leave our Klara be. Let her have her slow fade.’

The Mother had stepped in front of me, as though to shield me from Mr Capaldi, and because in her anger she’d taken her position hurriedly, the rear of her shoulder was almost touching my face. As a result, I not only became very conscious of the smooth woven fabric of her dark sweater, but was reminded of the moment she’d reached forward and embraced me, in the front of her car, the time we’d parked beside the Grind Our Own Beef cafe. Peering around the Mother, I saw Mr Capaldi shake his head and lean back again into the cushions.

‘I can’t help feeling,’ he said, ‘that you’re still mad at me, Chrissie. That you’ve been mad at me for a long time. And that’s unfair. Back then, it was you who came to me . Remember? And I just did my best to help you. I’m glad it worked out well with Josie in the end. I truly am. But that’s no reason for you to be so mad at me all the time.’

—

The last days before Josie’s departure were filled with both tension and excitement. Had Melania Housekeeper still been with us, things might have been calmer. But the New Housekeeper often left tasks undone until the last moment, then tried to do several all at once, and this added to the nervous atmosphere. I felt it important not to get in the way, and remained in the Utility Room for long periods, standing on the platform Josie had made for me, looking out of the high small window across the fields, listening to the noises around the house. Then one afternoon, two days before the departure, I heard Josie’s step on the top landing, and she appeared in the doorway.

‘Hey, Klara. Why don’t you come down for a while to the bedroom. I mean, if you’re not busy, that is.’

So I descended with her and found myself once more in the old room. Many details had changed. Aside from Josie’s own bed, there was now a permanent second cot for her visitors, while the Button Couch had been removed altogether. Many smaller details had also changed – for instance, Josie was now sitting in a new desk chair with castors on its feet, so that if she wished, she could move about while still sitting. But the Sun’s patterns on the wall were just as I’d remembered them from the many afternoons we’d spent there together. I sat down on the edge of her bed, and for a while we talked happily.

‘Everyone you speak to says they’re not scared of college,’ Josie said at one point. ‘But you wouldn’t believe, Klara, just how scared some of them really are. I’m kind of scared too, I’m not going to pretend I’m not. But you know what? I’m not going to let fear get in my way. I’ve made myself a solemn promise about that. Hey, did I tell you this before? We’re all supposed to set these official targets. Two targets in each of five categories. I had to fill in a form about it, but I cheated, because I figured out my own secret targets, nothing to do with the ones on the form. Boy, would they not like my real list! And no way is Mom ever hearing about it either!’ She laughed cheerfully. ‘Even you, Klara. I’m not sharing my secret targets with you. But if you’re still here when I get back at Christmas, I’ll tell you how many I’ve got through.’

This was one of few allusions Josie made during this period to my own possible departure. And she referred to it again on the morning she finally drove away with the Mother.

She’d hoped, I knew, that Rick would come to wave her off. But as it turned out, he was many miles away that day, meeting his new friends to talk about his hard-to-detect data-gathering devices. So it was just myself and the New Housekeeper who stood in the loose stones area, watching Josie and the Mother place the last of her luggage in the Mother’s car.

Then, once the Mother was ready behind the wheel, Josie came back towards me, the caution that had never left her walk making her feet sink noisily into the pebbles with each step. She looked excited and strong, and before she’d reached me, held up her arms as though trying to form the largest Y she could. Then she held me in an embrace that lasted many moments. She’d become taller than me, so she had to crouch a little, resting her chin on my left shoulder, and her long, rich hair fell across a section of my vision. When she pulled away, she was smiling, but I could see also some sadness. That was when she said:

‘I guess you may not be here when I get back. You’ve been just great, Klara. You really have.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you for choosing me.’

‘No-brainer.’ Then she gave me a second hug, this one more brief, and stood back again. ‘Bye, Klara. You be good now.’

‘Goodbye, Josie.’

She waved cheerfully once more as she was getting into the car – the wave aimed at me rather than the New Housekeeper. Then the car moved away up the road, past the windy trees and over the hill, in just the way Josie and I had watched it do many times before.

—

Over the last few days, some of my memories have started to overlap in curious ways. For instance, the dark sky morning when the Sun saved Josie, the trip to Morgan’s Falls and the illuminated diner Mr Vance chose will come into my mind, merged together into a single setting. The Mother will be standing with her back to me, watching the mist from the waterfall. Yet I am not watching her from the wooden picnic bench, but instead from my booth in Mr Vance’s diner. And although Mr Vance isn’t visible, I can hear his unkind words coming from across the aisle. Meanwhile, above the Mother and the waterfall, the dark clouds have gathered, the same dark clouds that gathered the morning the Sun saved Josie, small cylinders and pyramids flying by in the wind.