“I don’t think we can ever understand all that a woman is thinking,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to say. No matter who that woman may be. So I doubt the blind spot you speak of is yours alone. If that’s what you wish to call it, then we men are all living with the same sort of blind spot. So I don’t think you should blame yourself.”

“All the same, you’re speaking in generalities,” Kafuku said, after some thought.

“That’s true,” said Takatsuki.

“But I’m talking about my dead wife and me. I don’t want to jump to general principles so easily.”

“From what I can gather,” Takatsuki said after a long silence, “your wife was a wonderful woman. I am convinced of that even as I realize my knowledge of her is no more than a hundredth of yours. If nothing else, you should feel grateful for having been able to spend twenty years of your life with such a person. But the proposition that we can look into another person’s heart with perfect clarity strikes me as a fool’s game. I don’t care how well we think we should understand them, or how much we love them. All it can do is cause us pain. Examining your own heart, however, is another matter. I think it’s possible to see what’s in there if you work hard enough at it. So in the end maybe that’s the challenge: to look inside your own heart as perceptively and seriously as you can, and to make peace with what you find there. If we hope to truly see another person, we have to start by looking within ourselves.”

Takatsuki’s speech seemed to have emerged from deep within him. A hidden door had swung open, if only temporarily. His words were clear and charged with conviction. He wasn’t acting, that was for sure. His acting chops weren’t that good. Kafuku said nothing, just looked straight into his eyes. This time Takatsuki met his gaze and held it for a long time. They could see a certain sparkle of recognition in each other’s eyes.

—

They shook hands once again on parting. A fine rain was falling outside. After Takatsuki had walked off into the drizzle in his beige raincoat, Kafuku, as was his habit, looked down at his right palm. It was that hand that had caressed my wife’s naked body, he thought.

Yet on this day, that thought did not suffocate him. Instead, his reaction was, yes, such things do happen. They do happen. After all, it’s just a matter of flesh and blood. No more than a pile of bone and ash in the end, right? There has to be something more important than that.

If that’s what you wish to call it, then we men are all living with the same sort of blind spot. The words rang in his ear for a very long time.

—

“So did the friendship last?” Misaki asked, her eyes fixed on the line of cars in front of them.