his front teeth, and stepped toward him.
Mitsuo took an instinctive step backward, mud falling from his rubber boots. In the lowest and most restrained voice he could muster, he asked, "What's going on here?"
"Quite the comedian! That's exactly what I wanted to ask you. I've come to thank you for looking after my wife last night."
"Whaddaya mean, your wife? She's divorced."
"Afraid not." The man's front teeth poked out of his mouth even when it was closed. "Look, I know she led you on. She has a bad habit of saying she's divorced. Not that she could pass herself off as a maiden, always looking after the kid." He giggled, revealing discolored gums. "She came home in the middle of the night, her hair full of little pieces of straw. She's tied to a post right now. Fell asleep there, actually. A really sweet look on her face: you should see it. She cried and apologized till dawn, so you can imagine how tired she must be. I'm glad today's a holiday. I couldn't have gone to work leaving her tied up, so I'd've had to call in sick or something."
"What are you after? Money?" Mitsuo crouched, prepared to ward off any sudden attacks. If it came to punches, there was no way he would let himself come out only second best.
"No, just leave my wife alone, that's all. We had troubles in the last place we lived, and I don't want it happening again. I'll make her quit her job. If you pass her on the street, act like you don't know her."
The man turned and marched off. His clogs slanted out as he walked. Mitsuo stood and watched him, feeling a hint of disappointment. He recalled the woman's buttocks and pubic hair, the way she danced naked down the ridge.
From the apartments came a group of women carrying handbags, followed by a small herd of children. They passed Mitsuo's visitor on the way. Still at a distance, several of them yelled, "Hey, we're coming to buy tomatoes from you!"
As the contingent drew nearer, Mitsuo spotted a couple of husbands among the women, with babies in their arms. They were the perfect picture of office workers on holiday. Without waiting to be invited in, the group entered the hothouse and frolicked up and down the ridges, touching everything in sight.
After disposing of the customers, Mitsuo returned to the house for lunch. He found his mother sitting at the kitchen table, her arms crossed. "Why didn't you come help me?" Mitsuo asked, drinking water from a tea cup. On the table, he noticed a message scribbled in pencil on the back of a leaflet. It read:
Mrs. Tomiko Wada
I'm sorry for all the trouble I've caused. I can't blame you for hating me, since I've been such a terrible husband.
There's something I'd like to say. I want to break off with Chii and come home. That's the honest truth.
I'm going to do what's necessary, and hope you will help me out.
Matsuzo Wada
There was no question it was his father's handwriting. He'd probably written with the paper pressed against tatami, since the characters had uneven light and dark spots, and the paper was pierced here and there.
"I found it wrapped in Granma's parcel." Tomiko waited tight-lipped for her son's reaction, doing her best to contain her pleasure.
"Thinks only of himself, don't he?"
"He must feel pretty ashamed, to write this sort of thing."
"Where's Granma?"
"Sleeping. She was exhausted." Tomiko took the letter from Mitsuo's hands and read it over again, word by word. "I should have heard him out the other day in the hothouse."
"Why not break into the apartment and carry him off?"
"Will you help me?"
"Sure, let's take a chance. It'll be exciting, if nothing else." Mitsuo dropped a stale piece of pickled radish into his mouth. "Come on, give me lunch. I've still got a lot to do."
Mitsuo worked until it was too dark to see. He went home for dinner and took a bath, then returned to the hothouse. By the light of the moon, he constructed a rectangular bed by laying straw neatly over some cardboard and covering it with a blanket. He sat cross-legged and looked at the moon which shone through the vinyl roof, its reflection cracked on the surface of the sake he poured into a teacup. He drank, and it was as though he were consuming the moon itself: he sensed moonlight flooding through his body. Gradually he became tipsy, as though a tide were washing over him. He supplemented his drink with bites of tomato.
All was still. Mitsuo looked toward the apartments, the direction from which he expected a visitor to approach. He stuffed straw under the top of the blanket to make a pillow. Covering himself with the second blanket, he lay down. The straw rustled beneath him each time he turned. Unable to see the sky or the ground outside, he felt trapped in a box.
Come to think of it, he thought, that's exactly right. Pa went and sold our land, and now I've got nothing left to farm but this little box. Then his father had made things worse by letting the money slip away from him. All that remained was the house, pretentious and dusty.
Lying atop the straw, more than once he mistook his own stirrings for footsteps outside, and caught his breath. He longed for the woman's warmth and the softness of her body.
Finally, worn out from his day's labor, he dropped off to sleep. Some time later, he was awakened by a noise. There was a rustling among the tomatoes.
"So you came. I'm right over here." His voice resonated, as though it were coming from someone else's throat. The footsteps stopped. Mitsuo turned on his flashlight, and the bright light poured over the leaves. Suddenly someone was running. Mitsuo thrust himself out of bed. Jamming on his shoes cost him time. When he made it outside, he spotted a slender, bowlegged man running full speed toward the apartments, clutching a bag of tomatoes.
Mitsuo ran after him, yelling, "Stop thief!" The tips of his shoes clacked against the pavement as he ran. The man appeared and disappeared from sight as he passed under the streetlamps.
By the time Mitsuo reached the apartments, the man had vanished, but a half-dozen tomatoes rolled about on the ground. In the streetlight, the shadows of the fruit stretched long like clubs. No lights burned in the commercial sector. A dog rummaged through an overturned garbage can in front of the coffee shop. The regular pattern of the apartment buildings made them resemble a row of tombstones, a maze sneaking through each of them. Mitsuo continued to stand in place, bathed in a milky light. His chest pounded, but gradually his breathing returned to normal.
Giving up hopes of catching the thief, Mitsuo scooped up the wayward tomatoes. All were bruised and unmarketable. He flung them down upon the ground, and juice splattered as high as his face.
Back at the hothouse, he discovered the slash in the vinyl through which the thief had entered. Mitsuo slipped through the hole and repaired it on both sides with tape. The vinyl wrinkled about the tape, and through the repaired section the moonlight no longer shone.
"What are your hobbies?"
Mitsuo was being questioned by a swarthy man with tobacco-stained teeth, someone obviously ill at ease in a suit. The man was a coworker of Tomiko's, and an awkward speaker. His wife was dressed
