Free The diving pool: three novellas by Yōko Ogawa

looked up at me as if she had something to say. The hem of her dress swirled around her ankles.
"Would you like a croissant?" I said, trying to be as discreet as possible.
"Please don't even say that horrible word," she said. I nodded obediently. "But I would like to try something else," she continued, almost whispering.
"Sure," I said. I hurried to the refrigerator, realizing that this was the first time in weeks that she'd expressed any interest in food. But there was absolutely nothing there, just a bare lightbulb illuminating the emptiness. I closed the door with a sigh and went to look in the pantry, but there was nothing there, either.
"Don't you have anything?" she said, sounding worried.
"Let's see," I said, sorting through the bags and cans and jars. "There's a little gelatin, half a sack of flour, some dried mushrooms, red food coloring, yeast, vanilla extract . . ." I came across two leftover croissants, but I quickly put them back.
"But I want to eat something," she said, as if making a momentous decision.
"Hold on. There must be something around here." I checked the pantry again, shelf by shelf. At the very bottom, I found some raisins we'd once bought for a cake. The date on the box said that they were more than two years old, and they were as dried out as a mummy's eyeballs. "How about these?" I asked, pushing the bag toward her. She nodded.
It was strange to watch her eat something so hard with such a satisfied expression. Her jaw worked quickly as she took handful after handful from the bag. Her whole mind and body seemed to be concentrated on eating. When she came to the last few raisins, she let them rest on her palm for a moment, studying them lovingly before slowly putting them in her mouth. That was when I understood that her morning sickness was truly gone.
MAY 1 (FRIDAY), 23 WEEKS + 4 DAYS
In the past ten days my sister has gained back the ten pounds she lost during fourteen weeks of morning sickness. Now she seems to have something edible in her hand at every waking moment. If she's not at the table for a meal, she's clutching a bag of pastries, or looking for the can opener, or poking around in the refrigerator. It's as if her whole being had been swallowed up by her appetite.
She eats all the time, almost as a reflex, like breathing. Her eyes are clear and expressionless, fixed somewhere off in space. Her lips move vigorously, like the thighs of a sprinter. But for me very little has changed; it's just like when she was sick all the time—all I can do is sit back and watch.
She suddenly has an appetite for all sorts of strange things. One rainy night she announced that she was dying for loquat sherbet. It was raining so hard that the yard seemed to be hidden behind a curtain of white spray, and it was very late. We were all in our pajamas. It seemed unlikely that any store in the neighborhood would be open, not to mention the fact that I wasn't even sure there was such a thing as loquat sherbet.
"I want loquat sherbet," she said. "Gold and icy, like the pulp of the fruit frozen into tiny crystals."
"I'm not sure we'll find it tonight," said my brother-in-law, as nicely as he could. "But I'll try in the morning."
"No. I want it now. My head feels like it's full of loquats—I'll never get to sleep unless I have it." Her tone was deadly serious. I sat down on the couch, my back to the two of them.
"Does it have to be loquat? They might have orange or lemon at the convenience store." My brother-in-law had found the car keys.
"Are you really going out in this rain?" I called to him, unable to hide my amazement.
"It has to be loquat," she said, ignoring me. "I can practically taste it . . . but it's not really for me. . . ."
Her husband put his arm around her shoulder. "Why don't you take one of those pills Dr. Nikaido gave you and try to get some sleep?" he said, fiddling distractedly with the keys. There was something irritating about the way he kept glancing at her as he spoke.
MAY 16 (SATURDAY), 25