I went to the beach the next day at the same time and saw the teacher. The next day I did the same thing again. But no opportunity arose between us to exchange pleasantries or greetings. Moreover, the teacher's attitude was rather unsociable. He would arrive at certain times of the day and leave at others. No matter how lively the surroundings were, he hardly seemed to pay any attention to them. The Westerners who first came with him were never seen again. The teacher was always alone.
One day, as usual, the teacher quickly came out of the sea and put on her yukata, which she had taken off in her usual place, but for some reason there was a lot of sand on it. The teacher turned around and shook the yukata two or three times to remove it. Then her glasses, which had been placed under the kimono, fell through the gap between the boards.
The teacher put on a white kasuri and a soldier's belt. After tying a soldier's belt over his white kasuri, he seemed to realise that his spectacles were missing and suddenly started looking for them everywhere. I immediately stuck my neck and hands under the seat and picked up my glasses. The teacher said thank you and took them from my hands.
The next day I followed my teacher and jumped into the sea. Then I swam in the same direction as him. When we were about two yards out to sea, he turned around and spoke to me. There was nothing floating on the surface of the wide blue sea except us two in the neighbourhood. And so the strong rays of the sun illuminated the water and the mountains as far as the eye could reach. I danced in the sea, moving my muscles with freedom and joy. The teacher stopped moving his arms and legs again and lay on his back on the waves. I did the same. The colour of the blue sky flashed in my face, as if it were a glare in my eyes. 'Delightful,' I said loudly.
After a while, the doctor changed his posture to get up in the sea and urged me to leave. Having a relatively strong constitution, I wanted to play more in the sea. However, when the teacher invited me to go back, I immediately said, "Yes, let's go home". And so we both headed back along the original path to the beach.
I got to know my teacher from this. But I did not yet know where the teacher was.
I think it was the afternoon of the third day, exactly two days after that. When I met him at Kake Teahouse, he suddenly turned to me and asked: 'Are you still planning to stay here much longer? I, being an unthinking person, did not have enough preparedness in my head to answer such a question. So I said, "I don't know". But when I saw the smirking teacher's face, I suddenly felt embarrassed. I couldn't help but ask, "Where's the teacher?" I couldn't help but ask back. This was the beginning of the word 'teacher' coming out of my mouth.
I asked for the doctor's lodgings that night. The inn was not an ordinary inn, but a villa-like building in the precincts of a large temple. I also found out that the people living there were not the family of Sensei. When I called out Sensei Sensei, he laughed. I excused myself by saying it was my habit to address my elders. I asked him about the Westerner the other day. He told me about his eccentricities, the fact that he was no longer at KAMAKURAand many other things. He then said that it was strange that he had become friends with such a foreigner when he did not even socialise much with Japanese people. Finally, I turned to Sensei and said that I thought I had seen him somewhere, but I couldn't remember where. At that time, the young me suspected that the other person might have the same feeling as me. In my gut, I was anticipating the teacher's reply. However, after a few moments of contemplation, he said, "I don't recognise your face. I felt a strange kind of disappointment when he said, "I think you must be mistaking me for someone else.
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