The diving pool: three novellas - By Yoko Ogawa & Stephen Snyder Page 0,20

the flower beds or the shovel abandoned in the garden or the clouds floating by. I enjoy these quiet moments, and I sometimes even have a beer at lunch or smoke a cigarette, which my sister hates. I'm not lonely. Eating by myself seems to suit me. But this morning, as I was frying some bacon and eggs, she came running down the stairs.

"What's that awful smell?" she screamed, tearing at her hair. "Can't you do something?" She seemed ready to burst into tears. The bare feet protruding from the legs of her pajamas looked icy and as transparent as glass. She switched off the burner, nearly tearing the knob from the stove.

"It's just bacon and eggs," I whispered.

"Then why is the whole house filled with that disgusting smell? Butter, grease, egg, pork—I can't breathe!" Putting her head down on the table, she began to sob. I didn't know what to do, so I turned on the exhaust fan and opened a window.

By this time, she was crying in earnest. It was remarkable to watch, almost like a scene from a play. Her hair hung down over her face, and her shoulders heaved. I put my hand on her back to comfort her.

"You have to do something!" she said between sobs. "When I woke up, my whole body was filled with that awful stench. It's in my mouth and my lungs. My insides feel like they're coated with it. How did that awful smell take over the whole house?"

"I'm sorry," I said timidly. "I'll try to be more careful."

"It's not just the bacon and eggs. It's the frying pan and the dishes, the soap in the bathroom, the curtains in the bedroom—everything stinks. It's spreading all over the house, like a giant amoeba eating up all the other odors around it, on and on forever." She sat there weeping, her tear-covered face resting on the table, and I stood, my hand still on her back, studying the check pattern on her pajamas. The motor on the exhaust fan sounded louder than usual.

"Do you know how terrifying odors can be?" she asked. "You can't get away from them. I want to go somewhere where nothing smells, like a sterile room in a hospital, where I could pull out my guts and wash them clean."

"I know, I know," I murmured. I took a deep breath, but I couldn't smell anything at all. Just the kitchen in the morning. The coffee cups were lined up neatly in the cupboard. The white dish towels were drying on the rack. A patch of frozen blue sky was visible through the window.

I have no idea how long she cried. It might have been only a few minutes, but it seemed much longer. In any case, she cried until she couldn't cry anymore. Then she let out a long, slow breath and looked up at me. Her cheeks and eyelashes were damp with tears, but her expression was calm.

"It's not that I don't want to eat," she said quietly. "In fact, I'm starved and I feel as though I could eat just about anything. I get sad when I remember how I used to enjoy it. I go back over old meals in my head—roses on the table, candles reflected in the wineglasses, steam rising from the soup or a roast. Of course, nothing has any smell in my imagination. But I think a lot about what I'll eat first when the morning sickness ends—if it ever ends. I try to picture it: sole meunière or spareribs or broccoli salad. I imagine every detail, so it's more real than real. I think about eating day and night—like a kid starving during the war. I guess that must sound silly."

She rubbed at her tears with the sleeve of her pajamas.

"Not at all," I said. "There's nothing you can do."

"Thank you," she muttered.

"From now on, I won't use the kitchen when you're here," I said. She nodded. My cold bacon and eggs lay quietly in the pan.

FEBRUARY 10 (TUESDAY), 12 WEEKS + 1 DAY

Twelve weeks—and the morning sickness is as bad as ever. It clings to her like a wet blouse. Which may be why she went to see Dr. Nikaido today. Her nerves and her hormones and her emotions seem all out of whack. As she always does before these visits, she spent a long time deciding what to wear. She lined up all her coats and skirts, her sweaters and her scarves on the bed and studied