The diving pool: three novellas - By Yoko Ogawa & Stephen Snyder Page 0,5

from the diving board and return to the Light House, where his muscles would warm and soften like silk floss, and then he would soak up all the things that set my nerves on edge—Naoki's raspy voice, the scraps of food flung about by the children, my mother's endless chattering. It seemed strange that he could be so good when life had treated him so badly: a father who ran off when he was born and a mother who had abandoned him for the bottle. I prayed desperately to be bathed in his kindness.

The sound of children's feet came through the floor from upstairs. It was bath time: I could imagine them running around in great clouds of talcum powder. I stared at my mother's glistening lips and nudged my chopsticks against the fatty bits of meat left on my plate. Then I passed a sauce bottle to Jun, hoping to hear him say "Thank you"—the sound of his voice could wash away the sour feeling in my stomach.

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon. My mother and father had gone out to record a radio program for the church. Reiko, who shared my room, was stretched out on the top bunk reading a science magazine. Jun was at the ballet class he attended every week. He had started recently at the urging of his diving coach, who said it would help him with form and flexibility. I have trouble imagining him at ballet class, accustomed as I am to seeing his body framed in sparkling water at diving practice, but I found myself feeling jealous of those flat-chested little girls in white leotards, their hair pulled back in tight buns.

In Jun's absence, these Sunday afternoons seemed somber and endless. I kept busy by reviewing for my English class; when I became bored, I flipped through the dictionary at random, studying the simple yet strangely realistic illustrations: an albatross, a still, a wood box, a waffle iron.

It was a beautiful day outside. Sunlight covered the ground like a shower of gold dust. The shadows of trembling ginkgo leaves were etched sharply on the wall of the church, and the breeze blowing through the curtains carried the first hints of summer.

"Are you going to the hospital today?" I said, turning toward Reiko.

"No, not today," she replied without looking up from her magazine.

Reiko had come to the Light House less than six months earlier. My parents had carried in boxes stuffed with books and tired, out-of-fashion clothes, and then Reiko herself had appeared at the door of my room. She was heavyset and taller than I was, and she wore thick glasses. Though she was only in middle school, her flesh seemed to sag in places, like the body of a middle-aged woman.

"Pleased to meet you," she said, lumbering into the room as if her body were a burden.

It was rare for someone as old as Reiko to come to the Light House. Most children were brought as infants and were adopted while they were still young. Jun was the first to reach high school age while still living here.

Reiko's parents were both in a mental hospital. Their problems were apparently very serious, with no hope that they would recover and return to normal life.

"They'll miss you if you don't go." I knew that she didn't like talking about her parents, but I brought them up as often as possible. The children here suffered from almost every imaginable misfortune, yet it struck me as particularly bad luck to have both parents go crazy, one after the other.

"I wish they would miss me," she said. Closing the magazine, she sat up on the bed and took off her glasses. "I'd be glad if they did." With her glasses off, her eyes were so small it was hard to tell where she was looking.

"And that's what makes you so sad?" I asked.

She blinked nervously but said nothing. Her vacant stare confounded my efforts to understand what she was feeling. Her lips were pursed in what might have been a faint smile, but it might also have been a wounded frown. There were several seconds of icy silence.

"The hooks have come undone," she said at last, as if talking to herself.

"Hooks?"

"That's right. The ones that kept my mother and father and me together. They've come undone and there's no way to get them fastened again." Sometimes she spoke like a young lady from a good family.

I wondered what sort of sound was made when the hooks