When I saw her in the teahouse, she had just taken off her kimono and was about to enter the sea. I, on the other hand, was coming out of the water with my wet body blowing in the wind. There were many black heads moving between us, blocking my eyes. Unless there were special circumstances, I might have missed the teacher at last. The reason I spotted him so quickly, despite the crowded beach and the fact that my mind was so distracted, was that he was accompanied by a Westerner.
The superior white skin colour of this Westerner immediately caught my attention as soon as I entered the kakechaya. He was wearing a pure Japanese yukata, which he had left slung out on the floor stool, and was standing with his arms folded, facing the sea. He was wearing nothing on his skin except for the pair of sarugimata we were wearing. That was the first thing that struck me as strange. I had been to YUIGAHAMAtwo days earlier, crouching on the sand and watching Westerners go into the sea for a long time. The place where I had put my bottom down was on a little hill and right next to it was the back door of the hotel, so while I was sitting there, a lot of men came out to bathe in the salt, but none of them had their torsos, arms or thighs exposed. Women tended to hide their flesh even more. Most of them wore a rubber cape on their heads, floating in the waves, the colour of prawn brown, navy blue or indigo. To my eyes, which had just witnessed such a scene, this Westerner standing in front of everyone wearing only a pair of sarugata looked unusual.
He eventually looked to his side and said a word or two to the Japanese man squatting there. The Japanese was picking up a hand towel that had fallen onto the sand, but as soon as he picked it up, he immediately wrapped his head around it and walked towards the sea. That person was Sensei.
I watched their backs as they went down the beach side by side, simply out of curiosity. Then they stepped straight into the surf. And so, when they came to a relatively open area through the multitude of people rushing about near the shallow shore, they both began to swim. We turned offshore until we could see their small heads. Then they turned back and came back to the beach in a straight line again. When they returned to the kakechaya, they quickly wiped themselves off, put on their kimonos and quickly went away, without even bathing in the water from the well.
After they left, I was still sitting on the original floor stool, blowing a cigarette. At that moment, I thought about the teacher with a blank stare. I couldn't help but think that I had seen him somewhere before. But I couldn't remember when and where I had met him.
At that time I was suffering from ennui, rather than being without mendacity. So the next day, I went all the way to Kakechaya to see if I could find him again. The next day, I went all the way to Kakechaya to see if I could find the teacher again, but no westerners came. He took off his glasses, put them on the table, wrapped his head in a hand towel and walked down the beach. When he passed through the noisy bathers and started swimming alone, I suddenly felt the urge to follow him. I jumped in the shallow water up to my head and came to a considerable depth, from where I cut a swathe through the water with the teacher as my target. Then, unlike yesterday, he started to swim back towards the shore in a strange direction, in a kind of arc. So my goal was finally not achieved. When I went ashore and waved my dripping hand as I entered the kakechaya, Sensei was already dressed properly and went out in the opposite direction.
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