“In the instant Miu touched her hair, Sumire fell in love, like she was crossing a field and bang! a bolt of lightning zapped her right in the head. Something akin to an artistic revelation.”

“In the spring of her twenty-second year, Sumire fell in love for the first time in her life.”

“And most likely, that was the future in a nutshell, Sumire growing ever more distant. It made me sad. I felt like I was a meaningless bug clinging for no special reason to a high stone wall on a windy night, with no plans, no beliefs. Sumire said she missed me. But she had Miu beside her. I had no one. all I had was-me. Same as always.”

“Sumire was a hopeless romantic, a bit set in her ways - innocent of the ways of the world, to put a nice spin on it. Start her talking and she'd go on nonstop, but if she was with someone she didn't get along with - most people in the world, in other words - she barely opened her mouth. She smoked too much, and you could count on her to lose her ticket every time she took the train. She'd get so engrossed in her thoughts at times she'd forget to eat, and she was as thin as one of those war orphans in an old Italian film - like a stick with eyes. I'd love to show you a photo of her but I don't have any. She hated having her photograph taken - no desire to leave behind for posterity a Portrait of the Artist as a Young (Wo)Man.”

“I wasn't in love with her. And she didn't love me. For me the question of love was irrelevant. What I sought was the sense of being tossed about by some raging, savage force, in the midst of which lay something absolutely crucial. I had no idea what that was. But I wanted to thrust my hand right inside her body and touch it, whatever it was.”

“Tell me,” said Sumire, “have you ever felt confused aboutwhat you’re doing, like it’s not right?”“I spend more time being confused than not,” I answered.”

“All over again I understood how important, how irreplaceable,Sumire was to me. In her own special way she’d kept metethered to the world. As I talked to her and read her stories,my mind quietly expanded, and I could see things I’d neverseen before. Without even trying, we grew close. Like a pair ofyoung lovers undressing in front of each other, Sumire and Ihad exposed our hearts to one another, an experience I’d neverhave with anyone else, anywhere. We cherished what we hadtogether, though we never put into words how very precious itwas.Of course it hurt that we could never love each other in aphysical way. We would have been far happier if we had. Butthat was like the tides, the change of seasons—somethingimmutable, an immovable destiny we could never alter. Nomatter how cleverly we might shelter it, our delicate friendshipwasn’t going to last for ever. We were bound to reach a deadend. That was painfully clear.I loved Sumire more than anyone else and wanted her morethan anything in the world. And I couldn’t just shelve thosefeelings, for there was nothing to take their place.I dreamed that someday there’d be a sudden, majortransformation. Even if the chances of it coming true were slim, Icould dream about it, couldn’t I? But I knew it would nevercome true.”