Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/268

258 stopped there. Okawa stood waiting with the strength of one at bay.

“Stab me if you dare.” Peeling off his coat, Okawa threw it on the grass and in the manner of all bluffers he bared his breast and extended both arms.

“You think I won’t stab you?” Sakai’s voice sounded strangely calm and collected. The gleam of cold steel rent the air.

“Oh!” All my blood went cold within me and this cry sprang from me as I saw how Okawa fell prone on the grass.

His fellow bullies ran to him to pick him up and carry him away. Sakai, limp and apathetic, followed them with his eyes, but once their figures had disappeared behind the bushes, he collapsed and lay motionless on the grass.

When I regained my presence of mind I hurried anxiously over to him. His face was buried in the summer grass and his shoulders were heaving.

Why?—I could not understand the reason.

Talking about not understanding reasons, there was another thing about Sakai that I could never fathom. In his desk he always kept a single white silkworm cocoon. Once I asked him why he kept it, but he refused to answer, so out of spite I cut it up into little bits with my scissors. For a whole day after that he did not speak to me. A week later a similar cocoon was in his drawer again.

Later these two riddles were solved together.