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on. You were doing very well." Ichiro rolled back over and returned to his picture. His earlier concentration, though, seemed to have deserted him; he began to add more and more fleeing figures at the bottom of his sketch until the shapes merged and became meaningless. Eventually abandoning any sense of care, he started to scribble wildly all over the lower section of the sheet. "Ichiro, what are you doing? We won't go to the movie if you"re going to do that. Ichiro, stop that!" My grandson sprang to his feet and yelled out: "Hi yo Silver!" "Ichiro, sit down. You haven't finished yet." "Where's Aunt Noriko?" "She's talking with your mother. Now, Ichiro, you haven't finished your picture yet. Ichiro!" But my grandson went running out of the room, shouting: "Lone Ranger! Hi yo Silver!" I cannot recall precisely what I did with myself for the next several minutes. Quite possibly I remained sitting there in the piano room, gazing at Ichiro's drawings, thinking about nothing in particular as I am increasingly prone to do these days. Eventually, though, I rose to my feet and went in search of my family. I found Setsuko sitting alone on the veranda, looking out at the garden. The sun was still bright, but the day had grown much cooler, and as I appeared Setsuko turned and moved a cushion into a patch of sunlight for me. "We made fresh tea," she said. "Would you care for some, Father?" I thanked her, and as she poured for me, I cast my gaze out to the garden. For all it suffered during the war, our garden has recovered well, and is still recognisably the one Akira Sugimura built some forty years ago. Down at the far end, near the back wall, I could see Noriko and Ichiro examining a bamboo bush. That bush, like almost all the other shrubs and trees in the garden, had been transplanted fully grown by Sugimura from elsewhere in the city. In fact, one rumour has it that Sugimura personally walked around the city, peering over garden fences, offering large sums of money to the owner of any shrub or tree he wished to uproot for himself. If this is true, then he made his choice with admirable skill; the result was--and remains today--splendidly harmonious. There is a natural, rambling feeling about the garden, with barely a hint of artificial design. "Noriko was always so good with children," Setsuko remarked, her eyes on them. "Ichiro's taken a great liking to her." "Ichiro's a fine boy," I said. "Not at all shy like a lot of children that age." "I hope he wasn't giving you trouble just now. He can be quite headstrong at times. Please don't hesitate to scold him if he becomes a nuisance." "Not at all. We"re getting on fine. We were just practising some drawing together, in fact." "Really? I"m sure he enjoyed that." "He was play-acting some scenario for me too," I said. "He mimes his actions very well." "Oh yes. He occupies himself for long periods that way." "Does he make up his own words? I was trying to listen, but I couldn't make out what he was saying." My daughter raised a hand to cover her laugh. "He must have been playing cowboys. When he plays cowboys, he tries to speak English." "English? Extraordinary. So that's what it was." "We took him once to the cinema to see an American cowboy film. He's been very fond of cowboys ever since. We even had to buy him a ten-gallon hat. He's convinced cowboys make that funny sound he does. It must have seemed very strange." "So that's what it was," I said with a laugh. "My grandson's become a cowboy." Down in the garden, a breeze was making the foliage sway. Noriko was crouching down by the old stone lantern near the back wall, pointing something out to Ichiro. "Still," I said, with a sigh, "only a few years ago, Ichiro wouldn't have been allowed to see such a thing as a cowboy film." Setsuko, without turning from the garden, said: "Suichi believes it's better he likes cowboys than that he idolise people like Miyamoto Musashi. Suichi thinks the American heroes are the better models for children