table beside him, along with the other gifts.
Once they had had their tea, they were free to move about a little bit, first to approach Mr. Kimura and tell him, through Naoko, that the garden looked especially nice, and that he, too, looked well. In turn, he welcomed them and said that it had been far too long since he had seen them, and that he had thought of them many times with affectionate friendship. Then he gave each of them a small gift wrapped in paper and decorated with his personal stamp and an ideogram. The box Margaret received was about twelve inches long and four inches wide. The paper was yellow, and Naoko told her that the ideogram represented the word for “grace.” She was quite moved by this; when she made her small bow, she suddenly had tears in her eyes. She backed away, as she saw others doing, and then went over to speak to Mrs. Wareham, who, as the oldest, had greeted Mr. Kimura first.
Mrs. Wareham asked her where Andrew was.
“He came with me, but he didn’t come in.”
“Andrew is well meaning, but he doesn’t seem to fit here, does he?”
“Not really. I was a little afraid, myself, that he would crush everything that he sat on or touched. It would be very embarrassing for them.”
“And you.”
“Maybe. Though, if I found him embarrassing this late in the day, what would that signify?”
Mrs. Wareham smiled.
Margaret said, “Do you like my roses?”
“They’re lovely.”
There was no talk of the impending death. Mr. Chang invited her to his restaurant; Mr. Lloyd told her that, once he began carrying the papers that Mr. Kimura had wanted, he had learned more about paper than he ever thought possible. “I’m not even going to tell you how much he paid for the papers he wrapped our gifts in. You’d have thought they had gold threads. But he would have them.”
“I’ll remember that when I open mine.”
“Goodness’ sake, don’t tear it. Frame it.”
“I will.”
She also struck up a conversation with Miss Wolfe, who said, “I only have the bookstore to supplement my income as a poet, but I am having to let some of the collections dwindle. It seems sad when you can’t even put Dante on the shelves without raising a few eyebrows. Not to mention Goethe.”
Margaret said, “What sort of poetry do you write?”
“Light verse. Sometimes I draw a cartoon or two.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Not quite a year. I moved up here from Los Angeles.”
In honor of the serious occasion, Margaret dampened her interest in this very attractive person. The party was short, but even so, Mr. Kimura’s evident exhaustion when Margaret stopped one last time to take his hand smote her, and as she stood outside the shop in the street, looking for Andrew, she felt lower than she had expected to feel.
Andrew came down the street from the west, the direction of the library. He was late because he had gotten tied up looking at maps. He asked if she had had a nice time, and whether Pete had been there. That was when she realized that Pete had not been there.
At home, she opened the package to discover one of Mr. Kimura’s brushes—it still smelled faintly of what must have been ink. She showed it to Andrew, who said, “Most probably squirrel hair.” She wrote her thank-you note at once, and walked down the street to mail it.
Mr. Kimura died two days later.
IN the fall, Andrew said to her over supper, apropos of nothing, “I could have told Joe Kimura years ago not to go over there.”
“Did you ever meet Joe Kimura?”
Andrew shook his head. “I should have. For his sake, I should have.”
Margaret decided to ignore this remark, and said, “What was he to do here? Live in a room with his brother for the rest of his life, and never marry or have a family? Yes, he apprenticed to Dr. Matsumi in Japantown, but there weren’t enough people in Japantown to support two dental practices. He did well in Japan for a while. Well enough to find a wife.”
“How often do they hear from him?” He put a crumb of bread on the tip of his finger and held it out to Stella. She walked over to him in a dignified way and took it, then sat.
“I have no idea. I think Lester hears more often, since they’ve always been close. But it’s true, Joe might be forced into the military and find himself