Thirst for Love (23 page)

* * *

In the kitchen, they washed the soil and the blood from their hands. Etsuko took off her
tabi
and her coat, which had been sprayed with blood. She had found her
zori
and worn them on the walk back.

Yakichi’s hands were shaking so severely he couldn’t dip up water. Etsuko, who was not shaking at all, dipped it for them. She carefully wiped away the bloodstains that had formed in the sink.

Etsuko left first, carrying her coat and
tabi,
rolled in a ball. She barely felt the skinburns and bruises she had suffered when dragged by Saburo. That was not true pain anyway.

Maggie howled, then suddenly stopped.

What can compare with the sleep that came upon Etsuko like divine favor as soon as she slipped into bed? Yakichi listened in amazement to her peaceful breathing. Extended fatigue, endless fatigue, tremendous fatigue far more immeasurable than the crime Etsuko had just committed, fulfilling fatigue derived from countless pains accumulated in the process of performing some efficacious act—surely no one could acquire innocent sleep like this without having paid for it with fatigue like that?

Nevertheless, after the short period of rest that had been vouchsafed to her, Etsuko awoke. Around her lay deep darkness. The wall clock chopped out the heavy, melancholy seconds, one by one. Beside her Yakichi lay, sleepless and shivering. Etsuko did not speak. No one would hear her voice. She deliberately opened her eyes to the darkness in the room. She could see nothing.

She could hear a distant cockcrow. Even now, with the dawn still distant, the roosters were crowing back and forth. Far away—where, she could not tell—one crowed. Then another, as if to answer the first. Then another. Then another. The crowing of roosters in the middle of the night, fittingly, knows no end. It went on again. It went on beyond ending.

. . . yet, there wasn’t a thing.