Water Eggplant and a Kitchen Knife (7)

 

     A few days after Nagisa visited her grandfather at the hospital, she bought ice cream at Koyoshi’s sweets shop as usual.  Though the days grew rather longer, the sun was sinking and evening stars were in the sky.  The fragrance of incense drifted in the breeze.  Koyoshi could be burning incense sticks at a Buddhist altar in the back of the shop.  Someone was chanting a prayer to the Buddha somewhere in the distance.

     To treat herself, Nagisa bought a bottle of Mitsuya Lemonade from a vending machine, and poured the soda on her ice cream.  The soda fizzed up on the ice cream.

     Nagisa was sitting on the bench as usual, sucking a wooden spatula, and looking over at the street vacantly, when a man walked along the street toward her.

     “Can I sit down here next to you?”

     The man spoke to her, and she moved a little.

     “Go ahead.”

     Even in the dim light, he apparently looked worn out.  Nagisa was afraid he suffered heat stroke for a moment, but he seemed not.  He took out something wrapped in newspaper from a paper bag.

     “My wife said that she bought them, following the advice of a girl who was having ice cream in front of the cheap sweets shop.”

     Nagisa saw a cut-out stainless knife through a crack of newspaper.  Besides, it was a kitchen knife as she recommended.

     You can use different types of knives for different purposes: to cut meat, to cut fish, to cut vegetables, and so on.   A kitchen knife is a kind of multi-purposed.  They are quite popular among ordinary households.

     As is often the case with a present, the name “Sebumi” was inscribed on the knife.

     So, this man is also Sebumi.  Nagisa was surprised as she hadn’t expected the man who would start living alone to be Sebumi’s husband.  She just thought it was her son that would become independent.   On second thought, she realized it was summer and it wasn’t the season to enter college or to start working.  She wondered if the man should work away from home.  She used her poor imagination.

     “I had my new knife chipped so soon.  Will you mend it?”

     Taking a closer look, she found a small chip on the edge of the knife.

     “Did you cut frozen food or something?”

     “How did you know that?”

     “Some people do that.”

     It’s often the case.  Some people try to cut frozen food as it’s frozen.  However strong a knife can be, frozen things are harder than them.  They say you can hammer a nail even with a frozen banana.  Exactly.

     “I can sharpen it, but why don’t you have it sharpened at the knife store where she bought it?  She can tell you where she bought it.”

     When he heard her words, Sebumi’s husband became at a loss for words.

     “What happened to your wife?”

     After a long silence, he gave out words.

     “She has passed away…..”

     Then it was Nagisa’s turn to be at a loss of words.  Why didn’t I speak to her in the hospital?  Her regrets and remorse slowly welled up in her from the bottom of her mind.

     “Really…..?”

     “I wanted to say thank you for helping her at the time.”

     He said that Mrs. Sebumi went to the knife store to buy a kitchen knife barely a day after she met Nagisa.  She also looked around its factory.  When Mrs. and Mr. Sebumi had supper, she told him with relish that she was happy to know what she hadn’t known.