Free Bicycle Days by John Burnham Schwartz Page B

wanted to be. I think I just wanted to be someplace that felt as if it belonged to me—the kind of place that I would think of whenever I heard the word
home.”
He paused. “But I guess
that’s
silly: home run, hometown, homework … there’s no end to it. No wonder I’m crazy.”
    Confused, she smiled and shook her head. She crossed her bare arms to keep herself warm. “You are very strange, Alec-san. You make jokes when inside you want to be serious, I think.”
    “It’s what I do when being serious gets scary,” Alec said. “You can think you’ve thought something out to the point of understanding yourself. But then sometimes things come out while you’re talking, and you realize that if you keep going, all you’ll discover are how many things you really don’t understand.”
    “You do not sound happy,” Kawashima said.
    He shook his head. “Maybe waiting is harder when you don’t know what you’re waiting for. But there’s got to be something out there—something worth the wait. Sometimes I think the idea of it is almost more important than whatever it might turn out to be. Anyway, I’m going on too long about this. Maybe we should go inside.”
    She dismissed his last words with a slight frown. “You said that when you were small you desired to be in another place.” Her voice was steady and quiet. “What place?”
    They were almost touching. “Right now this porch looks pretty good to me.”
    * * *
    The next day there were no meetings—Boon said he wanted everyone to relax and enjoy themselves, that he had another surprise. He led them down to the lake after breakfast. The sky was cloudless. As he emerged from the dense cover of the pine trees, Alec saw Mount Fuji. The distant peak was snow-capped, but not completely: like the full moon, there were traces of a human face, thin scars and discolorations where the snow had melted. And like the moon, the peak appeared suspended above an invisible base, disembodied.
    At one end of the lake, families lay along a bare strip of beach under striped umbrellas. On the paved path, a narrow band around the lake, children expertly weaved their bicycles through the crowds of pale, middle-aged men and women in hats and sunglasses. Boon led the group to a dock where an elderly man with one cloudy eye rented pedal boats, each one in the shape of a swan. The huge birds flocked expectantly, the long necks arching gracefully skyward, the glass orbs catching the sun as the boats bobbed gently on the water.
    When Boon went to pair everybody up, Alec turned, found himself standing next to Kawashima’s office-mate, Takahara. He groaned inwardly, remembering the disturbing ferocity with which Takahara had eaten soba during their one lunch together. But there was no time to change position in line. Like Noah’s animals, they stepped by twos into the great white birds. The old man winked his cloudy eye and sent them off with a strong shove.
    Once out on the lake, Alec turned to Takahara, who was busy watching the stem of ash on his cigarette grow longer.
    “We might go faster if you pedal, too.”
    Takahara was wearing a maroon velour warm-up suit. Thick-rimmed sunglasses covered most of his face. With the part that was still visible, he looked surprised.
    “Me pedal, Alec-san? I am sailor, not bird boater.” He turned back to his cigarette; the ash was improbably long.
    Alec looked carefully at the cigarette, at the face, at the velour suit. “I see,” he said.
    “I should be in big sailboat,” Takahara said.
    “You’re telling me.”
    Takahara didn’t get it. “With many women.” He gave Alec a conciliatory leer.
    Ahead and to the right, another swan boat moved steadily along. There was a glint of sunlight reflecting off glass, and Alec knew it must be Park. Drawing closer, he saw that Kawashima was with him, her hair tied back from her face. Moving slowly in opposite directions, the two boats drew momentarily abreast of each other. Park and Kawashima