would take them almost directly above the boat on which he stood. The
objects were heading in a south-westerly direction, along the ragged
forward edge of a massive blanket of grey cloud now advancing over Lake
Mi-shiga from the northwest.
Oblivious of the wind-driven snow-flakes that were beginning to swirl
round him, Izo Wantanabe stood there open-mouthed with his small son
clutched to his breast and watched as the objects passed over the jetty
to which the wheelboat was moored then grew smaller and were finally
swallowed by the advancing snow-cloud.
And there he stayed, his dark button eyes fixed on the point where the
two winged dots had vanished, oblivious of the tiny fingers that pulled
playfully at his bottom lip.
The questions raised by what he had just witnessed caused him to forget
the original reason for being there and it took the shrill cries of his
wife, Yumiko, to alert him to the fact that his son's unprotected head
was now liberally coated with snow.
Wantanabe meekly allowed Tomo to be snatched from him and followed his
wife inside.
By the traditional laws of domestic etiquette, a wife was not permitted
to upbraid her husband but, in practice, that convention was normally
only observed when friends, relatives, servants or superiors were
present. A wife was duty bound to respect and obey her husband but
that did not stop the more spirited (or malicious) members of the
female sex from giving their menfolk an earful in private - or showing
their displeasure in other, more subtle ways.
Wantanabe seated himself on the mat behind his writing desk and endured
the inevitable blast for endangering the health of his youngest child
in dignified silence. He knew Yumiko's concern was well-founded but
his mind was engaged on other, far more important matters which she,
being a woman, could not be expected to understand.
He slowly twirled the point of his writing brush on the ink block and
let her voice flow unheeded through his brain. Stripped of their
meaning, the stream of words resembled the clucking of an irate hen
driven from a newly-laid egg before she has had time to admire her
handiwork.
Eventually, as the ten-month-old child was vigorously rubbed dry and
his happy gurgles indicated that he was not about to expire, the
reproachful clucking was replaced by the soft mothering sounds that
humans and animals use when nurturing their young. And shortly
afterwards, when he had been dressed in dry clean clothes, the
glowing-checked child was presented to his father as a peace
offering.
