“That sound always takes me back,” he said with quiet feeling as he lay there between the quilts. “My old boss was forever having the doctor in to examine him, and the doctor, after he’d looked him over, would snap the top off those things in just that way. I’d be standing close by, and I can still hear the sound even now.” “How’s your appetite?” “Not too bad. But when your legs start swelling up, it means you’re near the end of the road, doesn’t it?... Come to think of it, though, people looked even puffier than me during the war, didn’t they?—in the face at least.” A brief smile flashed across his cheeks, which were mapped with dark brown blemishes, and without getting up he put a cigarette which the woman had lit for him between his lips. “Were you in Tokyo all through the war?” I asked. “No. I got out into the country toward the end.” “Where did you go?” “Kashiwa. There was a transit camp nearby, and there was plenty going on to keep us interested.”
