The housekeeper and the professor - By Yoko Ogawa Page 0,33

Kameyama jersey over his work clothes and had a transistor radio clipped to his belt. His fingers were wrapped tight around the backstop and he hung there throughout the game. When Kameyama was out in left field, the young man's eyes never left him, and when he appeared in the on-deck circle, he grew agitated. When Kameyama was up at bat, he called out his name in one continuous chant that went from joy to despair. In order to get a few millimeters closer to his hero, he had pressed his face against the fence, so that the mesh pattern had become imprinted on his forehead. He wasted no energy booing the other team, nor did he complain when the great man himself struck out. Instead, he poured his whole heart and soul into repeating that one word: Kameyama.

As we watched him, we began to wonder what would happen if Kameyama actually got a hit; and when, in the middle of the fourth inning, he knocked it into left field, the spectators sitting behind him reached up out of their seats, as if expecting him to faint dead away. Kameyama's ball shot between second and third and bounced into the outfield. It glowed white against the grass, and the outfielders scurried after it. The young man screamed for a long time, and even after his lungs were empty, he sobbed faintly and writhed against the fence. Paciorek was up next, and this ecstatic display continued well into his warm-up. By comparison, the Professor's reaction to the game was reserved and respectful.

He didn't seem to care that none of the players were familiar from the cards he had collected. Perhaps he was so busy trying to connect the rules and statistics stored in his head with the game on the field that he forgot to worry about the names of the players.

"What's in that little bag?" he asked Root.

"That's the rosin bag. It has pine tar to keep their hands from slipping."

"And why does the catcher keeping running toward first base like that?"

"He's backing up the throw, in case it gets away from the first baseman."

"But it looks like some fans are sitting in the dugout...."

"I think those are the interpreters for the foreign players."

The Professor turned to Root with his questions. He could tell you the kinetic energy of a pitch traveling 150 kph or the relationship between ball temperature and the distance a hit would travel, but he had no idea what a rosin bag was. He had loosened his grip on Root's hand, but he still kept close and relied on him for reassurance. He talked throughout the game. From time to time he bought something from the pretty woman selling concessions, or ate a few peanuts. But he never stopped glancing over in the direction of the bullpen, hoping to catch a glimpse of number 28.

The Tigers took a 6-0 lead going into the seventh inning, and the game seemed to be moving along quickly. But all attention soon shifted from the game itself to Nakagomi, who by the final inning was pitching a no-hitter.

Though their team had been ahead all along, the mood among the Tigers fans behind third base had grown more tense with each pitch. As the Tigers' last batter struck out and they took to the field, murmurs and moans could be heard from here and there in the bleachers. If the team had continued to rack up runs, it might have been easier to bear, but they had not scored since the fifth inning and there was no change on the scoreboard. Like it or not, the game was an intense duel and we were all focused on Nakagomi.

As he headed for the mound in the bottom of the ninth, someone in the stands finally gave voice to the thought that was on everyone's mind: "Three more outs!" A murmur of disapproval went through the bleachers, as though this encouragement was the surest way to jinx the no-hitter; but the only comment came from the Professor:

"The odds of pitching a no-hitter are 0.18 percent."

Hiroshima sent in a pinch hitter for the leadoff batter. No one had ever heard of him, but no one was paying attention anyway. Nakagomi threw his first pitch.

The ball cracked off the bat and sailed into the midnight blue sky, tracing a graceful parabola. It was whiter than the moon, more beautiful than the stars. Every eye was focused on that one point; but at the instant the