clang-dong

Kazu silently looked to the entrance.

“Ah,” she sighed when she saw Kohtake standing in the doorway.

Kohtake worked as a nurse at the local hospital. She must have been on her way home. Instead of her nurse’s uniform, she was wearing an olive-green tunic and navy-blue capri pants. She had a black shoulder bag on one shoulder, and she was wiping the sweat from her brow with a lilac handkerchief. Kohtake casually acknowledged Kei and Kazu standing behind the counter before walking up to Fusagi’s table .

“Hello, Fusagi, I see you’re here again today,” she said. Hearing his name, he looked up at Kohtake in puzzlement, before averting his eyes and lowering his head in silence.

Kohtake sensed that his mood was different from usual. She supposed he might not be feeling very well. “Fusagi, are you okay?” she asked gently.

Fusagi lifted his head and looked directly at her. “I’m sorry. Have we met before?” he asked apologetically.

Kohtake lost her smile. In the cold silence, the lilac handkerchief she had just used to wipe her brow dropped from her hand onto the floor.

Fusagi had early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, and was losing his memory. The disease causes rapid depletion of the brain’s neural cells. The brain pathologically atrophies, causing loss of intelligence and changes to the personality. One of the striking symptoms of early-onset Alzheimer’s is how the deterioration of brain function appears so sporadic. Sufferers forget some things but remember other things. In Fusagi’s case, his memories were gradually disappearing, starting with the most recent. Meanwhile, his previously hard-to-please personality had been slowly mellowing.

In that moment, Fusagi remembered that he had a wife, but he didn’t remember that Kohtake, standing before him, was his wife.

“I guess not,” Kohtake said quietly as she took one, then two steps back.

Kazu stared at Kohtake, while Kei pointed her pale face down at the floor. Kohtake slowly turned around and walked to the seat at the counter that was furthest from Fusagi and sat down .

It was after sitting down that she noticed the handkerchief that had dropped from her hand. She decided to ignore it and pretend it wasn’t hers. But Fusagi noticed the handkerchief, which had fallen near his feet, and picked it up. He stared at it in his hand for a while, and then he rose from his chair and walked over to the counter where Kohtake was sitting.

“You’ll have to excuse me. Recently I’ve been forgetting a lot,” he said bowing his head.

Kohtake didn’t look at him. “Okay,” she said. She took the handkerchief in her trembling hand.

Fusagi bowed his head again and shuffled awkwardly back to his seat. He sat down but couldn’t relax. After turning several pages of his magazine, he paused and scratched his head. Then a few moments later, he reached for his coffee and took one sip. The cup had only just been refilled, but—

“Damn coffee’s cold,” he muttered.

“Another refill?” Kazu asked.

But he stood up in a hurry. “I’ll be leaving now,” he said abruptly, closing his magazine and putting away his things.

Kohtake continued to stare at the floor with her hands on her lap as she clenched the handkerchief tightly.

Fusagi moved to the cash register and handed over the bill. “How much?”

“Three hundred and eighty yen, please,” Kazu said, glancing sideways at Kohtake. She punched in the amount on the cash-register keys.

“Three hundred and eighty yen.” Fusagi pulled out a thousand-yen note from his well-worn leather wallet. “Right, here’s a thousand,” he said as he handed the note over .

“Receiving one thousand yen,” Kazu said, taking the money and punching the cash-register keys.

Fusagi kept glancing at Kohtake, but with no apparent purpose. He appeared to be just restlessly looking around while waiting for the change.

“That’s six hundred and twenty yen change.”

Fusagi quickly reached out his hand and took the change. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said, almost apologetically, and hurried out.