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Show 64 that sha undsrstood ths signals, and walksd back, happisr than hs had bssn for, hs countad on his fingers, eight days. But when it cams, ths ride was not what ha sxpected. He waited outside in tha jeep, parked in the shadow of a bamboo grove, and whsn she picked her way across the parking lot and climbed in, ha backed out and headad for the Hondori, peering at hsr profils from time to time. But the conversation was strangely stiff. "Michio O.K.?" "Yas." "Back at work?" "Yas." "What was wrong?" Her eyas caught him momentarily, as if searching; then thay turned asids. "Something he ... ate." And a strangeness in tha tone mads him wonder: was she capabla of deceit? "Does hs eat anything but rice?" "That's all we have, now," she replied, a touch of reproach in her voica. "But it wasn't that. I don't know what it was." And the firmnass in her tone made him change the subjsct. But no mors happily. Topics startsd up liks rabbits, boundad a few pacss and disappeared, at which point he was faced with several acres of silancs again. For ths truth was that hs was not a grsat conversationalist. On the farm hs hadn't had much occasion to talk: his father was off in a field, his mother busy with chores. And when they met around the table at night, they discussed easy, daily things, |