On the second day of the fourth month in the thirteenth year, I remembered something. 

I had been practicing my calligraphy when a servant of mine, a young woman who was studying math, entered my drawing room. I believe her name was actually Kenzaburo, but in those days we called her Suzuki. She was not incredibly intelligent in a social sense, but she was a good employee of my estate and an excellent student of math. As for her looks, I have no expertise in the latest fashion, so I will refrain from any such judgements. She was quite short while I knew her though. Maybe if she was laid down she would barely exceed the length of a tatami. Hyperbole, most likely, but in those more relaxed days before the war we could afford to make such observations. Suzuki, herself, enjoyed when I would stretch out my arm and she would make a game of trying to hang from it like a steel bar. Of course, my strength usually gave out, as in those days I was frequently ill due to my recent recovery from tuberculosis.

In this hospice I took up poetry, but I will not say if I was ever any good, as what my  friend was able to teach me has long since faded from memory. His name was Motoshima Eiichiro. I suspect he has since died, due to his refusal to leave his old generational home on the outskirts of Tokyo. That area, now quite nice and refurbished, was decimated by fire bombs. At the time he was insistent that brush technique mattered as much as literary and emotional talent. So I would often practice my brush strokes in the way to evoke the highest emotional sentiments in my words as my weak hands could. The particular word I was struggling with that evening was “bond” or kizuna as it was. 

I had decided on the word the night before, when I had gone to sleep. During my breakfast I meditated on the term, and while I took my lunch I mourned the wet papers I had stained with worthless attempts. By the time I had finished my dinner, and waited on Suzuki to retrieve my bowl, I was mulling on the most recent of my attempts. I knew that it was normal for men in a situation such as I to begin philosophizing in some grand way to the stars, and to bring the full meaning of the word into the strokes of their brush. Through this, or something similar, as I was young and partial to outrageous fancy like that, I would be able to write a piece that could bring me a few yen in the following week's newspaper. I never needed the money, my family had assured me of that, but the matter of my piece was still something of concern. Those philosophizing types usually just ranted to the stars, but was I really going to do something so indecent? 

What if someone saw? 

If, for example, that old woman in the house next to mine happened to look out at me in the garden shouting to the skies about kanji? Imagine the rumors that such a person could spread. It would be the end of my time in that neighborhood, that was certain. So when Suzuki entered the room, I asked her to stay as I took up my brush. She sat a respectable distance from where I was at the desk. Close enough to keep pleasant conversation, and far enough to keep me from getting romantic ideas. Suzuki was a woman, after all. 

“Suzuki-san, how are you today?” 

“I’m fine.” 

“And your parents?” 

“They’re alright.” 

“How about your classes, are they going well?” 

“I guess.” 

“Are they difficult? You know, if you ever need help with such things you should feel safe coming to me for help. It has been five years, but I was once in college as well you know. Do not think that, because I am your boss, you should feel reserved around me. I’ve always thought that a relaxed household is the most peaceful, would you agree?” 

“Well, it’d be bad if everyone was too relaxed, you know?” Her eyes shifted to the bowl. 

“Indeed, you are not wrong on that account.” I laughed, though why I did eluded me then as it does to this day. Perhaps it was the awkwardness of my whimsy seeping through the masquerade. “I think it is important to not take for granted the bonds between people. For example, if two soldiers were to fight beside each other for years and then go their separate ways, never to see each other again, would that not be sad? Yet that is seen as good, while if one were to die on the battlefield the other would mourn. Though that is just the way men are normally I suppose. If my brother, Deizo, were to die right next to me I would cry, but since he is still living in the family home I doubt I would shed tears upon receipt of the post. Many people don’t like acknowledging the various ways in which they would react or interact with the people around them in times of stress. To learn the value of bonds, that is why you must meditate on your relation to others.”

Suzuki’s eyes had glazed over, so I made the first stroke of the character. 

“What?” 

“Bonds, Suzuki-san. Those things which exist between everyone from mild acquaintances to passionate lovers. Indeed, if a master were to part with a loyal and effective servant, would their bond not continue to exist in some way? That master would occasionally think back to his old servant and wonder where they were, if they had moved up in the world, perhaps even if they were looking for work. When two people are exposed to each other for a period of time, these things tend to happen. In school I sat next to a very rambunctious boy who happened to read the same comics in the newspaper that I loved. We never talked anywhere else, and I don’t even remember his name, but whenever I think back to those old comics I can’t help but wonder about that boy. That is the bond that he and I share, though it is a mild and nearly unobservable sort of bond.” I applied the second and third strokes while considering that he and I had such a thing as that. Which, prior to my speaking of it, I had never considered. 

“Sonochihama-san, you’re not making any sense.” Suzuki yawned. 

“Well, that is because you do not think of your employer as a man of culture. I have not practiced in front of you before, nor have I shared with you my education. Our bond, hitherto this meeting, was that of master and servant. Though I have treated you kindly and given you a more than generous wage considering the current market. Anyway, I think that the bond which you and I have is greater than that of the boy and I. Between us, you and I, there is a much friendlier way of things. When I let you hang off my arm while the others laugh, is that not proof of the way of things?” 

“It’s proof I drink too much sometimes.” She sighed. Her eyes had fallen from the bowl and now worked themselves cleaning out some dust from her fingernails. If her response had not been so exact I would have doubted she had been paying any attention to me. Then I really would have just ended up talking to myself. 

“Yes, well, then how about a relationship not so positive? Say, between a man and a hungry bear? If a bear kills a man, then it is pleased to satiate its hunger, if a man kills the bear, he is grateful for the fight and takes pride from it. In a way their bond is entirely dependent on the outcome, but it is still a bond nonetheless. People on the street have a similar sort of thing. When someone bumps into you, don’t you get cross with them? I feel that such expressions are good, because they release anger into the atmosphere. If such things were bottled up they would rot away at a person, and would harm those that they loved. So the bond between two people who are at odds is also a valuable thing.” 

I finished the last few strokes and held the paper up against the window. A few stray beams of the setting sun illuminated the backside of my piece. Showing me a wonderfully golden sheet with the character displayed in glorious form. I handed it to Suzuki with a smile. 

“This is proof of our bond now, Suzuki-san.” 

She took the page and looked over it for a moment before laughing. 

“Is this some kind of elaborate joke?” 

“I’m sorry?” 

“Like, a pun or something? That kind of thing?” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I thought my sincerity came across.” I went back to my pages and wondered if I had made a mistake. “It is correct, isn’t it?” 

“I guess so.” She laughed, “but in chinese, this means annoying, so I thought you were doing it on purpose.” 

I set my brush down. 

“Suzuki-san, am I annoying to you?” 

I had been terribly annoying. I let her go about her work after that, and I never asked if she was right about that translation or if she was Chinese. Honestly, I was too embarrassed at the time to even bother considering all of that. Our bond, as it was, remained unchanged until she graduated and moved back to her family in the countryside. I lost the house during the war, just one of those things which a person has to live with. Occasionally I do think about the place, and about the good times we had there. I like to think about the old woman who would serve me my meals, and the middle aged man who would drink with me and Suzuki. I remember how Suzuki would drink up and hang off my arm for a joke. I remember the creaking floorboards and all of that other stuff one thinks about in the mundane musing on nostalgic times. My bond to that house remained in such feelings. Concluding all of that, however, and the last thing that inevitably comes to my mind, are the last words Suzuki said to me that day, and which make my cheeks flush with the embarrassment that I had ever tried my hand at poetry. 

She grabbed the bowl off my desk and went to the door. Before she stepped through, however, she turned with an agitated smile. 

“Sonochihama-san, you’re not annoying. You’re just a pain in the ass.”