Klara and the Sun

by Kazuo Ishiguro

  ‘Rick must be a wonderful companion for Miss Helen. But as you can see, if you weren’t with her, she’d be able to find other companions to laugh and talk with.’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ Then he said: ‘Look, I’ve been thinking all this over. What you said the other night. And I’ve agreed now. I promised Mum I’ll try. Try my best, my very best, to get into Atlas Brookings.’

  ‘That’s wonderful!’

  He was now leaning over even more, perhaps trying to catch words, and I was concerned he might topple over because of his greater height. But then he straightened, resting both hands on the rail.

  ‘I’ve even agreed to meet this…man,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘Her old flame.’

  ‘The secret weapon person?’

  ‘Yeah, Mum’s secret weapon. She reckons he can pull strings for me. I’ve even agreed to that.’

  ‘But this might result in the best solution. The wishes in Josie’s kind picture could come closer to reality.’

  ‘Maybe they’re talking about that down there right now. How I’ve come round to Mum’s way of thinking after all this time. Maybe that’s what they’re finding so amusing.’

  ‘I don’t think they’re laughing unkindly. I think Miss Helen must be happy because of Rick’s promise. And hopeful.’

  He was silent for a moment, listening to the voices below. Then he said: ‘I think we’re getting a lift into the city with Josie and Mrs Arthur.’

  ‘Yes, I know. And I’ve been asked to come too.’

  ‘Well, that’s good. Then you and Josie can both give me moral support. Because I’m not looking forward to begging this character for help.’

  Josie’s voice suddenly called from the bedroom: ‘Great! So everyone’s deserted me!’ Then as Rick turned back towards the door: ‘Hey, Klara, you can come back in here too. It’s okay. We’re not performing any big sex acts.’

  * * *

  —

  Two days later, I was to hear yet more about the trip to the city, and this time in a surprising way.

  It was a rainy weekday with no visitors. Josie had gone into the Open Plan after lunch for an oblong tutorial, and I’d gone up to the bedroom. I was sitting on the floor, surrounded by magazines, when Melania Housekeeper appeared in the doorway. She stared down at me, her face neither kind nor frowning, and I thought she’d come to reprimand me for the times I’d left Rick and Josie unattended in the bedroom despite her warnings about hanky-panky. But she stepped further inside, then said in a kind of harsh whisper:

  ‘AF. You wish help Miss Josie right?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Then you listen. Ma’am take Miss Josie city Thursday. I say I want go with them, Ma’am reply no. I say yes, Ma’am still say no. She say no because she see damn well I onto something. She say she want take AF instead. So you listen. You keep damn good eye Miss Josie in city. Hear me?’

  ‘Yes, housekeeper.’ I also spoke quietly, though there was no chance Josie could hear us. ‘But please explain further. What is it you’re worried about?’

  ‘Listen, AF. Ma’am take Miss Josie see Mr Capaldi. Portrait guy. That Mr Capaldi one creep son bitch. Ma’am say you good observe. Then you damn good observe Mr Son Bitch. You want help Miss Josie. We same side.’ She glanced back at the door, though there were no sounds of Josie emerging from her lesson downstairs.

  ‘But housekeeper, isn’t Mr Capaldi just wishing to paint Josie’s portrait?’

  ‘Paint portrait fuck. AF, you watch close Mr Son Bitch or something bad happen Miss Josie.’

  ‘But surely…’ I lowered my voice even further. ‘Surely the Mother would never…’

  ‘Ma’am love Miss Josie. But Miss Sal die and mess Ma’am up bad. Get me, AF?’

  ‘Yes. Then I’ll observe very carefully as you say, especially around Mr Capaldi. But…’

  ‘What you but about now, AF?’

  ‘If Mr Capaldi is as you say. Will it be enough for me just to observe?’

  The way Melania Housekeeper was staring down at me, a passer-by might have thought she was threatening me, but I now understood she was filled with fear.

  ‘How fuck I know enough? I want go with Miss Josie, Ma’am say no way. Take AF instead. Can’t figure it. So you stick close Miss Josie, specially when Mr Son Bitch around. You do best, AF. We same side.’

  ‘Housekeeper,’ I said. ‘I have a plan, a special plan to help Josie. I’m not able to speak openly about it. But if I can go to the city with Josie and her mother, I may have the opportunity to carry it out.’

  ‘Plan? Listen, AF. You make things worse, I fuck come dismantle you.’

  ‘But if my plan works, Josie will become strong and well. She’ll be able to go to college and become an adult. Unfortunately I’m not free to tell you more. But if I can get to the city, I’ll have a chance.’

  ‘Okay. Main thing, AF, you keep good eye Miss Josie in city Thursday. Hear me?’

  ‘Yes, housekeeper.’

  ‘And AF. Your big plan. If it make Miss Josie worse I come dismantle you. Shove you in garbage.’

  ‘Housekeeper,’ I said, smiling confidently at her for the first time since coming to the house, ‘thank you for this talk and for your warning. And thank you for trusting me. I’ll do everything I can to protect Josie.’

  ‘Okay, AF. We same side.’

  * * *

  —

  There was one further incident of note during this period before the trip to the city, and it was one that provided me with an important lesson. It occurred deep in the night when I was brought awake by Josie making a noise. The bedroom was dark, but because Josie disliked complete darkness, the blind covering the front window was one third raised, and the moon and stars were making patterns on the wall and floor. When I looked towards the bed, I saw Josie had created a mound shape there with her duvet, and a humming noise was coming from within it, as if she were trying to remember a tune and hadn’t wished to disturb the rest of the house.

  I moved closer to the mound shape, then when I was standing over it, touched it gently. Immediately it erupted, the duvet disintegrating into the surrounding darkness, and the room became filled with Josie’s sobbing.

  ‘Josie, what’s the matter?’ I kept my voice low, but urgent. ‘Has the pain come back?’

  ‘No! No pain! But I want Mom! Get Mom! I need her here!’

  Not only was her voice loud, it was as if it had been folded over onto itself, so that two versions of her voice were being sounded together, pitched fractionally apart. I’d never before heard her produce such a voice and for a second became hesitant. She brought herself up into a kneeling position and now I saw the duvet hadn’t disintegrated after all, but was in a large ball behind her.

  ‘Get Mom!’

  ‘But your mother needs to rest.’ I kept my voice a whisper. ‘I’m your AF. This is exactly why I’m here. I’m always here.’

  ‘I didn’t say you. I need Mom!’

  ‘But Josie…’

  There was movement behind me, and I was pushed aside so that I almost lost balance. When I recovered, I saw before me, on the near edge of the bed, a large shifting shape, made additionally complex by the patches of blackness and moonlight moving over its surface. I realized the shape was the Mother and Josie embracing – the Mother dressed in what looked like pale running clothes, Josie in her usual dark blue pajamas. As well as their limbs, their hair had become mingled, and then their shape began gently to rock, in a way not unlike when their goodbyes became extended.

  ‘Don’t want to die, Mom. I don’t want that.’

  ‘It’s okay. Okay.’ The Mother’s voice was soft, at just the same level mine had been.

  ‘I don’t want that, Mom.’

  ‘I know. I know. It’s okay.’

  I moved quietly away from them towards th
e doorway, then out onto the dark landing. I stood at the rail, looking at the strange night patterns on the ceiling and the hallway below, and turned over in my mind the implications of what had just occurred.

  After a while, the Mother came quietly out of the bedroom and, without looking my way, turned into the darkness of the short corridor that led to her own room. There was now silence from behind Josie’s door, and when I returned to the bedroom, the duvet and the bed were orderly, and Josie was sleeping, her breaths peaceful again.

  PART FOUR

  The Friend’s Apartment was inside a townhouse. From the window of its Main Lounge I could see similar townhouses on the opposite side of the street. There were six of them in a row, and the front of each had been painted a slightly different color, to prevent a resident climbing the wrong steps and entering a neighbor’s house by mistake.

  I made this observation aloud to Josie that day, forty minutes before we set off to see the portrait man, Mr Capaldi. She was lying on the leather sofa behind me, reading a paperback she’d taken down from the black bookshelves. The Sun’s pattern was falling across her raised knees, and she was so engrossed in her reading, she made only a vague noise in reply. I was pleased about this because earlier she’d been getting very tense with the waiting. She’d relaxed noticeably once I’d gone to stand at the triple window, knowing I’d alert her the moment the Father’s taxi drew up outside.

  The Mother too had been getting tense, though whether on account of the coming meeting with Mr Capaldi or because of the Father’s imminent arrival, I couldn’t be certain. She’d left the Main Lounge some time before, and I could hear her voice from the next room on the phone. I could have listened to her words by putting my head to the wall, and I even considered doing so, given the possibility she was talking to Mr Capaldi. But I thought this might make Josie even more anxious, and in any case, it occurred to me the Mother was more likely to be speaking to the Father to give street directions.

  Once I’d understood Josie was depending on me to look out for the Father’s taxi, I put aside plans to learn further the Friend’s Apartment and concentrated on the view from the triple window. I didn’t mind this, particularly since there was always the chance the Cootings Machine would go by, and even if I couldn’t very well chase after it, such a sighting would be an important step forward.

  But by then I’d come to accept that the chances of the Cootings Machine passing the Friend’s Apartment were slight. Earlier, during our drive into the city, I’d become overly hopeful because, while still on the outskirts, we’d passed numerous overhaul men, and even when the men weren’t to be seen, their barriers were there closing off one street or another. That was when I’d begun to think the Cootings Machine would appear at any moment. But though I kept looking from my side window, and though twice we passed other kinds of machines, it never appeared. Then the traffic became slower and there were fewer overhaul men. The Mother and Miss Helen, in the front, were talking to one another in their usual relaxed way, while beside me in the back, Josie and Rick pointed things out to each other in soft voices. Sometimes one would nudge the other as we passed something, and they’d laugh together, even though no words had been exchanged. We passed a pink blossoming park, then a building with a sign that said ‘No Standing Except Trucks’, and in the front Miss Helen and the Mother were also laughing, though both had caution in their voices. ‘Just be strict with him, Chrissie,’ Miss Helen said. Next came Chinese signs, and bicycles chained to posts, then it began to rain – though the Sun kept trying his best – and umbrella couples appeared and tourists with magazines over their heads, and I saw an AF hurrying for shelter beside his teenager. ‘Rick, that’s ridiculous,’ Josie said about something and giggled. The rain stopped as we came into a street with buildings so tall the sidewalks on both sides were in shadow, and there were undershirt men sitting on their front steps talking and watching us go by. ‘Really, Chrissie, please drop us off anywhere,’ Miss Helen was saying. ‘We’ve already taken you much too far out of your way.’ I saw two gray buildings side by side that weren’t the same height, and someone had made a cartoon painting on the wall of the taller building where it stood above its neighbor, perhaps to make their discrepancy less awkward. My mind filled with happiness each time I saw a Tow-Away Zone sign though these were slightly different to the ones outside our store. Josie leaned forward and made a humorous remark and both adults laughed. ‘We’ll see you both tomorrow then at the sushi place,’ the Mother said to Miss Helen. ‘It’s right next to the theater. You can’t miss it.’ And Miss Helen said, ‘Thank you, Chrissie, I know it’ll help me greatly. It will help Rick too.’ We drove through a fountain square, then a park filled with leaves where I spotted two more AFs, then into a busy street with high buildings.

  ‘He’s late,’ Josie said from the sofa, and I heard the dull thump of her paperback falling onto the rug. ‘But I guess that’s not unusual.’

  I realized she was trying to make a joke of it, so laughed and said: ‘But I’m sure he’s very anxious to see Josie again. You must remember how slowly the traffic moved when we were coming here. The same is probably happening to him now.’

  ‘Dad never gets places on time. And after Mom promised to pay for his taxi. Okay. I’m going to forget everything about him for a while. Definitely doesn’t deserve fussing over.’

  As she reached down for her fallen paperback, I turned again to the triple window. The view of the street from the Friend’s Apartment was quite different to the one from the store. Taxis were rare, but other kinds of cars – in every size, shape and color – went by quickly, coming to a stop at the far left of my view, where a long-arm traffic signal hung over the street. There were fewer runners and tourists here, but more headset walkers – and more pedal cyclists, some carrying items in one hand while steering with the other. Once, not long after Josie’s remark about the Father’s lateness, a cyclist went by holding under his arm a large board shaped like a flattened bird, and I feared the wind would catch the board and make him lose balance. But he was skillful and darted around the cars till he was at the front, right under the hanging traffic signal.

  The Mother’s voice in the next room had grown anxious, and I knew Josie could hear it, but when I glanced around, she appeared still to be engrossed in her paperback. A dog lead woman went past, then a station wagon with ‘Gio’s Coffee Shop Deli’ on its side. Then a taxi slowed down directly outside. The Main Lounge was higher than the sidewalk, so I couldn’t see into the interior of the taxi, but the Mother’s voice stopped, and I was certain this was the Father arriving.

  ‘Josie, here he is.’

  At first she went on reading. Then she took a deep breath, sat up and let the book fall to the rug again. ‘Bet you think he’s a dork,’ she said. ‘Some people think he’s a dork. But actually he’s super-smart. You have to give him a chance.’

  I saw a tall but stooping figure in a gray raincoat emerge from the taxi holding a paper bag. He looked uncertainly up at our townhouse, and I supposed that he was confused as to which one it was, those on our side being as similar as those on the other. He kept holding the paper bag carefully, the way people carry a small dog too tired to walk. He chose the correct steps, and might even have seen me, though I’d moved back into the room once I’d given Josie my warning. I thought the Mother would now come back into the Main Lounge, and her footsteps sounded, but she remained out in the hall. For what seemed a long time, Josie and I – and the Mother in the hall – waited in silence. Then the bell rang and we heard again the Mother’s footsteps, then their voices.

  They were speaking to one another softly. The door between the hall and the Main Lounge was partly open, and Josie and I – both standing in the center of the room – watched carefully for signs. Then the Father came in, no longer in his raincoat, but still holding his paper bag in both hands. He had on a fairly high-rank office jacket, but under it a tired brown sweater that came up to h
is chin.

  ‘Hey, Josie! My favorite wild animal!’

  He clearly wished to greet Josie with an embrace, and looked around for somewhere to put down the paper bag, but Josie stepped forward and placed her arms around him, paper bag and all. As he received her embrace, his gaze wandered around the room and fell on me. Then he looked away and closed his eyes, letting his cheek rest against the top of her head. They stayed like that for a time, keeping very still, not even rocking slowly the way the Mother and Josie did sometimes during their morning farewells.

  The Mother was equally still, standing a little way behind, a black bookshelf at each shoulder, her face unsmiling as she watched. The embrace continued, and when I glanced again at the Mother, that whole section of the room had become partitioned, her narrowed eyes repeated in box after box, and in some boxes the eyes were watching Josie and the Father, while in others they were looking at me.

  At last they loosened their embrace, and the Father smiled and raised the paper bag higher, as though it were in need of oxygen.

  ‘Here, animal,’ he said to Josie. ‘Brought you my latest little creation.’

  He passed the bag to Josie, holding its bottom till she was doing the same, and they sat down side by side on the sofa to peer inside it. Rather than remove the item from the bag, Josie tore the paper away at the sides to reveal a small, rough-looking circular mirror mounted on a tiny stand. She held it on her knee and said: ‘So what’s this, Dad? For doing make-up?’

  ‘If you want. But you’re not looking at it. Take another look.’

  ‘Wow! That’s sensational. What’s going on?’

  ‘Isn’t it strange how we all tolerate it? All these mirrors that show you the wrong way round? This one shows you the way you really look. No heavier than the average compact.’