After the quake: stories Page 0,29

translated into English.

“She says that there is a stone inside your body. A hard, white stone. About the size of a child’s fist. She does not know where it came from.”

“A stone?” Satsuki asked.

“There is something written on the stone, but she cannot read it because it is in Japanese: small black characters of some kind. The stone and its inscription are old, old things. You have been living with them inside you for a very long time. You must get rid of the stone. Otherwise, after you die and are cremated, only the stone will remain.”

Now the old woman turned back to face Satsuki and spoke slowly in Thai for a long time. Her tone of voice made it clear that she was saying something important. Again Nimit translated.

“You are going to have a dream soon about a large snake. In your dream, it will be easing its way out of a hole in a wall—a green, scaly snake. Once it has pushed out three feet from the wall, you must grab its neck and never let go. The snake will look very frightening, but in fact it can do you no harm, so you must not be frightened. Hold on to it with both hands. Think of it as your life, and hold on to it with all your strength. Keep holding it until you wake from your dream. The snake will swallow your stone for you. Do you understand?”

“What in the world—?”

“Just say you understand,” Nimit said with the utmost gravity.

“I understand,” Satsuki said.

The old woman gave a gentle nod and spoke again to Satsuki.

“The man is not dead,” translated Nimit. “He did not receive a scratch. It may not be what you wanted, but it was actually very lucky for you that he was not hurt. You should be grateful for your good fortune.”

The woman uttered a few short syllables.

“That is all,” Nimit said. “We can go back to the hotel now.”

“Was that some kind of fortune-telling?” Satsuki asked when they were back in the car.

“No, Doctor. It was not fortune-telling. Just as you treat people’s bodies, she treats people’s spirits. She predicts their dreams, mostly.”

“I should have left her something then, as a token of thanks. The whole thing was such a surprise to me, it slipped my mind.”

Nimit negotiated a sharp curve on the mountain road, turning the wheel in that precise way of his. “I paid her,” he said. “A small amount. Not enough for you to trouble yourself over. Just think of it as a mark of my personal regard for you, Doctor.”

“Do you take all of your clients there?”

“No, Doctor, only you.”

“And why is that?”

“You are a beautiful person, Doctor. Clearheaded. Strong. But you seem always to be dragging your heart along the ground. From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well. You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value.”

“Tell me something, Nimit,” Satsuki said, taking off her sunglasses and leaning over the back of the passenger seat.

“What is that, Doctor?”

“Are you prepared to die?”

“I am half dead already,” Nimit said as if stating the obvious.

That night, lying in her broad, pristine bed, Satsuki wept. She recognized that she was headed toward death. She recognized that she had a hard, white stone inside herself. She recognized that a scaly, green snake was lurking somewhere in the dark. She thought about the child to which she never gave birth. She had destroyed that child, flung it down a bottomless well. And then she had spent thirty years hating one man. She had hoped that he would die in agony. In order to bring that about, she had gone so far as to wish in the depths of her heart for an earthquake. In a sense, she told herself, I am the one who caused that earthquake. He turned my heart into a stone; he turned my body to stone. In the distant mountains, the gray monkeys were silently staring at her. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value.

After checking her bags at the airline counter, Satsuki handed Nimit an envelope containing a one-hundred-dollar bill. “Thank you for everything, Nimit. You made it possible for me to have a wonderful rest. This is a personal gift from me to you.”

“That is very thoughtful of