Free A Quiet Life by Kenzaburō Ōe

Mr. Shigeto. I blankly watched the title “Sutego” tremble, as if in fear, under the eraser's vigorous movements. And then I blurted. “Feyore, is that a sad piece? Is it about the loneliness you feel? It's about an ‘abandoned child,’ isn't it?”
    “It's in D minor. Is it a sad piece? I wonder,” he replied, with eyes that told me his thoughts still remained on the score. The pencil he had used to finish making his corrections now rested on his ear. “I've only just now finished it.”
    “In time you're going to know very well, Feyore, whether it's a sad piece or not,” Mrs. Shigeto said with a deep sigh, squinting her heavy-lidded, thread-thin eyes. I think that in our hearts Mr. Shigeto and I sighed, in unison, the same deep sigh she sighed.

    When October came, Eeyore and I flew to Father's birthplace in Shikoku because of a bereavement in the family. Great-uncle—that's what we called Father's elder brother, using the title differently from the way it's defined in dictionaries—had passed away. I was told that cancer had spread from his liver to his lungs, and even to his brain. And so we were prompted to pay our condolences on behalf of our parents. Aunt Fusa sounded calm when she called to inform us of Great-uncle's passing, probably because he had been in the hospital a long time, and also because she didn't wish to cause me alarm.
    Aunt Fusa asked for the phone number of our parents' quarters in California, and said she would discuss with Father what we, who were looking alter the house in their absence, should do, and then call back. She added that she would be the information center, for if I also called Mother, not only would this be redundant, but it might cause some confusion of information,which would require another overseas call, and this would be uneconomical. Although I didn't have direct, specific memories of Great-uncle, I remembered Aunt Fusa to be a woman who occasionally said a few humorous things, and who could exercise practicality, as she did in the present situation. Other than this, I remembered her as being basically a quiet, reserved person. She was quite different from Father, though they were brother and sister. A half hour later, she called back to tell me she had been able to reach Father at his quarters, for it was early morning here, and the time difference was just right.
    The content of Aunt Fusa's second call was that K-chan was shocked, but with Oyu-san with him, he was all right. When he visited Great-uncle in the hospital before leaving for the States, the doctor informed him that his brother's condition was serious, that the cancer had metastasized, which was something everyone in the family already knew. Perhaps the cowardly K-chan had gone to California because he feared he would have to witness the scene of Great-uncle painfully dying of cancer. This was most likely the reason he left. There may have been others, of course, but he became utterly depressed after visiting Great-uncle.
    They had talked, she continued, of the possibility of K-chan coming back for the funeral. He said he would, but then they decided that he should remain in California. They would, however, like me to come with Eeyore and attend the funeral ceremony. She told me how much we should bring as a monetary offering to the departed soul. If we came on that day's flight, someone would be there to pick us up at the airport, and we could spend the night at the house in the valley. She wanted me to bring Eeyore along because Grandma was grieving, much more than K-chan, and his coming there would cheer her up a little.
    When we arrived at Matsuyama Airport and came out of the boxlike passageway that joined the plane to the airport building, the landscape beyond the window met us with a brightness I thought I hadn't seen in a long, long time. Squinting, and smiling a smile induced by the sun, Eeyore let out a “Hoh!” and kept looking into the light outside. As I stood at the narrow baggage-claim