“Yes, nobody would dare antagonise you.”
“I don’t remember, but I liked playing with you and I even used to kick a rubber ball with you.”
“Nonsense, you didn’t ever kick a rubber ball! You used to wear little white shoes and were always afraid of getting them dirty.”
“That’s right, when I was little I was really fond of wearing white sneakers.”
“You were like a princess.”
“Sure—a princess wearing sneakers.”
“Then your family moved.”
“That’s right.”
“At first you often came to visit on Sundays, but later on not as much.”
“I had grown up.”
“My mother really liked you.”
“I know.”
“There were no daughters in our family.”
“Everyone said we looked alike, like an older sister and a younger brother.”
“Don’t forget we’re the same age, that I’m two months older.”
“But I seemed older than you; I was always taller by a hand, as if I were your older sister.”
“At the time, girls got tall earlier. Enough of that, let’s talk about something else.”
“What will we talk about, then?”
The path under the trees has clipped Japanese cypresses growing on both sides. On the slope behind the cypresses, a young woman wearing a dress and carrying a red handbag sits down on a stone bench.
“Let’s sit down for a while too.”
“All right.”
“The sun’s about to set.”
“Yes, it’s beautiful.”
“I don’t like this artificial sort of beauty.”
“Didn’t you say you liked going to parks?”
“That was when I was little. I’ve lived in the mountain regions. I was a woodcutter for seven years in ancient forests.”
“You managed to survive.”
“Forests are really awesome.”
The young woman wearing the dress gets up from the stone bench and looks to the end of the shady path beyond the neatly clipped cypresses. Several people are coming from that direction, among them a tall youth with hair over his temples. Beyond the tree tops and the wall, the sky is infused with the brilliant red and purple colours of sunset, and rippling clouds begin to spread overhead.
“I haven’t seen a beautiful sunset like this for a long time. The sky seems to be on fire.”
“It’s like a wildfire.”
“Like what?”
“It’s like a forest wildfire…”
“Well, keep talking.”
“When there’s a forest wildfire, the sky is just like this. The fire spreads swiftly and with a vengeance, and there’s no time to cut down the forest. It’s really terrifying. Felled trees fly into the air, and in the distance they look like bits of straw drifting up in a fire. Crazed leopards come out of the forest and throw themselves into the river. They swim right at you—” “Don’t the leopards attack people?”
“They’re past thinking about that.”
“Don’t people use their rifles on them?”
“The people are also traumatised; they just stare vacantly at the fire from the riverbanks.”
“Isn’t there anything that can be done?”
“Mountain streams can’t stop it. The trees on the other side get scorched, start crackling, and suddenly they’re alight. For a distance of more than several li around it’s so smoky and hot you can’t breathe. All you can do is wait for the wind to change, or for the fire to get to the river, exhaust itself and burn out.”
The young woman in the dress sits down again on the stone bench; her red handbag is beside her.
“Tell me some more about your experiences during those years.”
“There’s nothing much to tell.”
“How can there be nothing much to tell? All that was very interesting.”
“But there’s not much point in talking about all that now. Talk about what you’ve been doing all these years.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“I’ve got a daughter.”
“How old?”
“Six.”
“Is she just like you?”
“Everyone says she’s just like me.”
“Is she like you when you were little? Does she wear white sneakers?”
“No, she likes to wear leather shoes. Her father buys her one pair after another.”
“You’re lucky. He sounds like a nice person.”
“He’s quite good to me, but I don’t know if I’m lucky or not.”
“And isn’t your work also quite good?”
“Yes, compared with what many other people my age do, my work’s all right. I sit in an office, answer the phone, and take documents to my superiors.”
“Are you a secretary?”
“I look after documents.”
“That sort of work is confidential, it shows that they trust you.”
“It’s much better than being a labourer. Haven’t you also come through a hard time? You went to university, so I suppose you’re doing some kind of professional work now?”
“Yes, but it was all through my own efforts.”
The colours of the sunset vanish. The sky is now a dark red, but on the horizon, above the tree tops, there is an orange-yellow glow on the edge of a dark cloud. On the slope it is becoming dark in the grove and the young woman on the bench is sitting with her head bowed. She seems to look at her watch and then stands up. She is holding her handbag but decides to put it down again on the bench, as she looks at
