"It's just the sort of thing Yoshitake might do," said Wang of the Taroken to the butcher-shop brothers, as they wolfed down pot-stickers and gulped their beer. The brothers knew they'd been nicknamed "the Ox Twins," but they didn't know that the people of the arcade gossiped about them constantly and even distinguished between them by calling the older one the Black Ox and the younger one the Red Ox. In fact the brothers weren't twins; three years separated them. Still, in facial appearance and stature they looked enough alike to be twins. Tatsumi Ryuichi, the older one, had a dusky complexion. Ryuji, his younger brother, earned his nickname from the way his face, neck, and chest turned crimson when he was excited. They shared a wild temperament and a tendency to fight when they drank; the elder, in particular, had until three years before been a member of the yakuza organization that dominated southern Osaka. He wore long-sleeved shirts, even in summer, to cover the tattoos that spread from his back to his elbows. He'd reformed and, following in his father's footsteps, ran the butcher shop harmoniously with his younger brother; but no one knew when his true nature might reassert itself. Everyone on Dream Street believed this, but no one would say it. They were afraid of what might happen if they let something slip and the brothers got wind of it.
      "Yeah, but what good does it do Yoshitake to trash the old lady's shop? She'd got one foot in the grave," Ryuichi said to Wang, a toothpick in his mouth.
      "It's Furukawa. Furukawa. Listen. Yoshitake wants to run for the ward assembly next year. He needs money. He's gotta round up votes, too. And Old Man Furukawa can deliver six hundred votes."
      "Six hundred votes? How can Old Man Furukawa do that?" When Ryuji was angry his face grew red, but when he drank it went pale. Now his face showed considerable interest. Wang sat down before the Ox Twins and spoke as if he were revealing a momentous secret. "You know that weird religion called the Light of Happiness?"
      The Ox Twins glanced at Wang skeptically. "Don't know it," they replied.
      "The founder's a woman. They say light shines from her fingertips. If that light touches you, it cures all your diseases, and your business prospers. With that line they've recruited some three thousand members in the last ten years. The headquarters are about ten minutes west of here by car, and so most of the believers are concentrated around this area. I've heard there are six hundred just in this ward."
      Wang paused for a moment, then lowered his voice. "Furukawa is the founder's little brother. In the last election for the prefectural assembly, Furukawa took some money from the conservative incumbent and collected votes from the Light of Happiness. Six hundred votes don't count for much in a prefectural election, but at the ward level, it's enough to make a candidate drool. If Furukawa asked him to get rid of the old lady, Yoshitake couldn't refuse."
      "So that's it." The Black Ox laughed, and the Red Ox clapped Wang on the shoulder. "You're pretty smart."
      Pleased with himself, Wang poured beer for the brothers. "You'll see. Pretty soon the police'll be after Furukawa."
      Wang was startled to see the brothers exchange glances and smile. Maybe the two men with their faces hidden under helmets had been the Ox Twins. The blood drained from Wang's face. He couldn't sleep a wink that night. He'd blabbed the whole plot to the butcher brothers, and they were tools of Yoshitake and Furukawa. He'd be next. Wang pictured himself being stuffed into the trunk of the Ox Twin's car, carried off into the mountains, and buried alive, still bound hand and foot. He shook his wife awake. "I might be killed," he mumbled, his eyes bleary.
      His wife pulled him down by the collar of his pajamas, covered him with a quilt, and said, "You're having a silly dream. Go to sleep or you'll be late for school tomorrow." Half asleep, she took her husband for her daughter.
      Wang's anxiety and fear were immediately resolved, however. Someone had seen license numbers the night of the incident and reported them by telephone to the police, who immediately turned up the names of two high school students. The boys played dumb at first, but confessed when the policemen told them, "The longer it takes you to come clean, the longer you'll be in the reformatory." The crime arose from a trivial incident. The Furukawas had five sons. The youngest, a high school student, failed his university entrance exams. Drinking some sake to dull the disappointment, he went to a nearby park, where he sat on a bench in the cold wind, despairing of the world. With an ear-splitting roar, two boys in helmets and leather jackets rode up on motorcycles and began to race around the park. The Furukawa boy was furious. Emboldened by sake, he picked up a piece of wood and threw it toward the bikes. It struck the boy riding in front, right on the head. The boy and his bike toppled over, and the second bike, following close behind, struck the first and went flying. The Furukawa boy ran away in a panic, but then began to worry and looked back. The two riders had been watching their assailant run away, even as they lay writhing on the ground; and now they had a clear view of his face, since he'd stopped under a street light. As it happens, the two bikers were students at the same high school as the Furukawa boy. One of them had broken a wrist, the other a leg. During their recovery, they waited eagerly for the chance to have their revenge. The broken bones took nearly two months to mend. Then, that night, they mounted their bikes and barrelled into Dream Street Shopping Arcade, intending to smash the show window of the Furukawa Stationery Shop and break the youngest son's arm or leg. The shop always stayed open until ten o'clock, but for some reason the shutter was down and the second-floor lights were off, though it was still only eight. There was nothing to do but attack the tobacco stand. Since it occupied space in the same building, they assumed that Tomi's business was run by the Furukawa Stationery Shop.
      When the police officer relayed these facts to her as she lay in bed, Tomi made a grim smile and weakly shook her head. "The police have been fooled. It was Furukawa and Yoshitake who wrecked my shop. There's no doubt about it."
      The officer explained the matter in the minutest detail, but Tomi was not to be persuaded. Exasperated, he vented his anger on Yoshitake Kenji and the Furukawas: "The old lady'll hold a grudge against you until the day she dies. That's what you get for treating her badly all these years, just to gain one mat of shop space." He asked if there was anyone in the neighborhood whom Tomi trusted. Yoshitake and the Furukawas scratched their heads. Suddenly the officer remembered the young man who'd stayed beside Tomi the night she was taken to the hospital. "Oh. That was Mr. Satomi," said Mrs. Furukawa. She pointed to the second floor of the Wakana Fishcake Shop, diagonally across the street. Fixing his gaze on the fluorescent light shining from the second-floor window, the officer left a brusque parting shot: "I've done all I can. If you want to clear up the old lady's suspicions, the three of you should go ask for Satomi's help. Get him to convince her that you weren't the instigators. You bear some responsibility in this, Mr. and Mrs. Furukawa. It was your son who started it all. I'll be keeping an eye on you to see that you don't bully that lonely old lady any more."
      The officer didn't sympathize with Tomi, nor was he driven by righteous indignation. He had no prospects for advancement in the seven years remaining before his retirement. The only pleasure left him was to pretend to side with the weak and browbeat anyone who had reason to feel guilty. His last words struck home. Yoshitake Kenji and the Furukawas made a beeline for the Wakana Fishcake Shop.
      After returning from work the next day, Satomi Shunta bought a box of strawberries and headed for the hospital. Buying some milk at the hospital shop, he prepared the strawberries for Tomi as he did what Yoshitake and the Furukawas had asked him to do--he tried to persuade Tomi with an exhaustive explanation. He saw right away that his efforts were wasted. Wrapped in a terrible despair by the unexpected disaster, and nearly drained of what little life-force had been left, the old woman's mind hadn't returned to normal.
      "They say the perpetrators' parents will pay for the repairs to your shop."
      Tomi's face remained stiff, no matter what Shunta said. He was wondering why, when she suddenly spoke. "I suppose the swallows' nest was smashed, too."
      "No, it's all right. It's still there under the eaves."
      Shunta had forgotten to look into the life expectancy of sparrows, as Tomi had asked. "The encyclopedia only lists the varieties of swallows that come to Japan, shows their distribution with a map, and says that they return to North America and the Eurasian continent." At the bookstore he'd found several monographs on swallows, but none of them said how long a sparrow lives. He'd intended to go to the library and make a thorough study of the question, but he'd forgotten about it after Tomi's incident.
      "Where's the Furashan continent?"
      "It's Eurasia, not Furasha."
      "Eu . . . ra . . . sia." Bashfully, Tomi took out her false teeth. She said a strawberry seed between her teeth and gums was hurting her.
      "The Eurasian continent is the region that includes Europe and Asia."
      "Europe and Asia. Then, is New Guinea part of it?"
      Shunta pictured the map of the world. He suspected that New Guinea wasn't counted among the nations of Asia, but maybe, strictly speaking, it was Asian territory.
      "My son died in New Guinea."
      Shunta was silent. He sensed that Tomi would begin talking again like one possessed, and he intended to listen. She seemed to be lost in thought, however, and said nothing more. Shunta picked up her false teeth, which were peeking out from under her pillow, took them to the bathroom, and washed them for her. He'd never realized that a little strawberry seed would be painful to an old person who wore dentures. Tomi's eyes were closed when he returned to her room. Seeing a tear make its way from the corner of her eye to her temple, Shunta was about to say something; but it occurred to him that she was probably thinking about her late son, and so he returned the dentures to her pillow, slipped from the room, and returned to his own roost.
      Tomi wasn't thinking about her son. Surprised that Satomi Shunta would wash her dentures for her, Tomi felt her heart fill with gratitude. Those dirty things, she thought. Even a relative wouldn't want to touch them. . . . She wakened again and again during the night. Her hatred for Yoshitake Kenji and the Furukawas had continued to grow, but now it was crowded out by her gratitude to the youthful Shunta. Looking through the window of her room she knew that dawn was near. She knew that death, too, was near. Struggling to sit up, she began to write slowly with a ballpoint pen on a little memo pad. Finishing with the date and her name, she stamped the slip of paper with the water-buffalo-horn seal that she always carried with her. She was out of breath; her heart made sounds like bursting bubbles. Using the wrapping paper that had come with Shunta's strawberries, she wrapped up the memo. Then she groped for the plastic supper dish she'd left on the table beside her bed. Her finger touched some hard grains of rice. Using these instead of paste, she sealed each and every opening in the fruitery paper that wrapped her memo. Still not satisfied, she folded down the corners, pasted them, then folded the papers double and pasted them again. Her fingers shook; her vision grew dim. She'd written that the rights to her tobacco stand and the Y1,154,000 she'd diligently accumulated in a postal savings account would go to Satomi Shunta upon her death.
      Tomi asked herself whether her life had been fortunate or unfortunate. She thought she'd probably been unfortunate. But now, at the very end, if she was not fortunate to be able to leave everything to Satomi Shunta, who'd allowed her to feel this deep gratitude, then what was good fortune? Satomi Shunta, who somehow looked like her son. This is what she said to herself as consciousness faded away. The happiness that came to her on her deathbed cancelled out the many misfortunes that had showered on her until then. Tomi lived for another three hours, but she never regained consciousness. She stopped breathing just after seven o'clock in the morning.
      Since Tomi had no close relatives, Yoshitake Kenji had to see to every detail of her funeral, because he served as Chairman of the Municipal Self-Governing Council in addition to being President of the Dream Street Shopping Arcade Merchants' Association. Yoshitake was furious with himself for his stupidity in joining Furukawa's campaign to oust Tomi. Summoned by the police, treated like a criminal, ridiculed by the residents of Dream Street Shopping Arcade--the very thought made him boil with rage, nor was there any end in sight. On top of that, he had to track down an heir for the money Tomi left behind. He took out his anger on his wife and on the employees at his pachinko parlor. At the wake, he said to the directors of the Self-Governing Council, "I finally found one. Tomi's only relative."
      "You found one, did you?" replied Tai Kikujiro.
      "Her husband had a younger brother. But he died fifteen years ago. The brother had a daughter."
      "You don't say."
      "Well, I thought that was it. But two years after she gave birth, the daughter divorced her husband, and then in no time she died, too."
      "You don't say."
      "Then it really got difficult." Yoshitake emphasized the good faith and personal expense he'd expended in his search for Tomi's only living relative. "Tomi's brother-in-law's granddaughter is in Hokkaido."
      He spread out Tomi's possessions before the directors. A photograph of her husband; a photograph of her son, killed in the war; clothing; various small articles. The passbook for her postal savings account, and her seal. It was decided to put everything but the passbook and seal into the coffin with her. Yoshitake began to do so, with the directors as witnesses.
      Tai Kikujiro held out an oddly shaped piece of folded paper on his palm. "What's this?" he said.
      "That was beside Tomi's pillow," explained Yoshitake.
      "Something seems to be wrapped inside. Shouldn't we open it?"
      Yoshitake replied dismissively to the elderly Tai's comment. "It's nothing but origami. She probably made it to amuse herself at the hospital."
      During the dispute over whether or not to open the little piece of wrapping paper, Satomi Shunta arrived to offer incense. After watching the director's exchange for a while, Shunta said diffidently, "It might be something she wouldn't want others to see. If you're going to open it, wouldn't it be best to ask the police to serve as witness?"
      "It . . . it's nothing at all," said Yoshitake in confusion, as soon as he heard the word "police." "Let's . . . let's put it in the coffin. Right? Right? This wrapping paper is from the fruitery. She wouldn't wrap something important in this kind of paper."
      "You're all sour on the police, now, aren't you," teased one of the directors. Blushing, Yoshitake placed Tomi's will, written with the last drop of her strength, in the coffin. And so the Y952,000 that remained in Tomi's estate, after her funeral expenses had been deducted, went to Tomi's brother-in-law's granddaughter.

Translated by Anthony Hood Chambersould go to Satomi Shunta upon her death.