“I was only hoping to talk about my wife with someone who knew her,” Kafuku added. “To tell the truth, it can get kind of rough when I’m sitting at home all by myself. I know it’s an imposition on you, though.”

Takatsuki looked relieved. His relationship with the man’s wife did not seem to be under suspicion.

“It’s no imposition at all. I’d be happy to make time for something like that. I just hope I won’t bore you.” A faint smile rose to his lips as he said these words, and the corners of his eyes crinkled with compassion. An altogether charming expression. If I were a middle-aged woman, thought Kafuku, my cheeks would be turning pink right now.

Takatsuki mentally flipped through the schedule he kept in his head. “I think I have plenty of time tomorrow night. Do you have other plans?”

Kafuku replied that he was also free then. He was struck by how easy it was to read Takatsuki’s emotions. The man was transparent—if he looked into his eyes long enough, Kafuku thought, he could probably see the wall behind him. There was nothing warped, nothing nasty. Hardly the type to dig a deep hole at night and wait for someone to fall in. But neither, in all likelihood, was he a man destined to achieve greatness as an actor.

“Where shall we meet?” asked Takatsuki.

“I leave it to you,” Kafuku said. “Tell me a place, and I’ll be there.”

Takatsuki named a well-known bar in Ginza. He would reserve a booth, he said, so that they could talk frankly without having to worry about being overheard. Kafuku knew the spot. They shook hands goodbye. Takatsuki’s hand was soft, with long slender fingers. His palm was warm and slightly damp, as if he had been sweating. Perhaps he was nervous.

After he left, Kafuku sat down on a chair in the green room, opened his right hand, and stared hard at his palm. The sensation left by the handshake was still fresh. That hand, those fingers, had caressed his wife’s naked body. Slowly and deliberately, exploring every nook and cranny. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. What in heaven’s name was he trying to do? He felt that whatever “it” was, he had no choice but to go ahead and do it.

—

As he sipped single malt whiskey in the booth at the bar, Kafuku came to one conclusion. Takatsuki was still deeply attached to his wife. He had not yet grasped the immutable fact of her death, that the flesh he had known had become a pile of charred bone and ash. Kafuku could understand the way he felt. When Takatsuki’s eyes grew misty recalling her, he wanted to reach out to console him. The man was quite incapable of hiding his emotions. Kafuku sensed that he could trip him up with a trick question if he so chose, induce him to confess everything.

Judging from the way Takatsuki spoke, Kafuku’s wife had been the one to call a halt to their affair. “It’s best we not meet anymore,” was probably how she had put it. And she had followed through on her words. A relationship of several months brought to a sudden close. Nothing long and drawn out. As far as Kafuku knew, that was the pattern of all her amours (if they could be called that). But it seemed that Takatsuki couldn’t handle such a quick and casual break. He must have been hoping for a more permanent bond.