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impregnation was concerned. Queasiness and vomiting confirmed the joyous news as surely as the stained blotter of the little home-test kit. As for whether the child-to-be was male, several more weeks would pass before anyone could tell. But Tetsuo was full of confidence and that made Reiko happy.

    Little Yukiko had reached the age where she attended preschool half of every day. Reiko would deliver her daughter to the playground entrance and watch all the children line up in their little uniforms, attentive to every phase of the carefully choreographed exercise activity. They seemed to be enjoying school, clapping together in time as the instructors led them through teaching rhymes. But who could actually tell what was best for a child?

    Reiko often wondered if they were doing the right thing, starting Yukiko's education so early, a full two years before the law required.

    " Doozo ohairi, kudasai !" the headmaster called to her little charges. The neat rows of four-year-olds filed indoors under an arched doorway decorated with origami flowers. It all felt so alien and remote from Reiko's own childhood.

    Modern times are very hard, she knew. And Tetsuo was determined to provide their children with the very best advantages to face such a competitive world. Yukiko was one of only ten little girls in her juku preschool class, all the rest being boys. It was commonly said to be a waste to bother much on a female's education. But Tetsuo believed their daughter should also have a head start, at least compared with other girls.

    Piping sounds of earnest recitation . . . Reiko remembered that examinations in only four more weeks would determine what kindergarten would accept little Yukiko for admission. And for boys the cycle of juku , of compressed learning and scrutiny, began even earlier, with some parents spending small fortunes on special "baby universities."

    A month ago there had been a news story about a six-year-old who took his own life in shame when he did not do well in an exam. . . . Reiko shuddered and turned away. She straightened her obi and looked downward as she hurried to the nearby station to catch the next train.

    It seemed there was no escaping rush hour anymore. Staggered work schedules only spread the chaos over the entire day. Reiko endured being packed into the car by white-gloved station proctors. Automatically, she raised invisible curtains of privacy around her body and self, ignoring the close pressure of strangers—women with shopping bags at their feet, many of the men hiding their eyes within lurid, animated magazines—until the train at last reached her stop and spilled her out onto a platform near Kaygo University.

    Smog and soot and noisy traffic had erased the semirural ambience she recalled from long ago. Reiko's earliest memories—from when she had been Yukiko's age—were of this ancient campus where she had grown up as a professor's daughter, playing quietly on the floor of a dusty study stacked high with aromatic books, the walls lined with fine works of makimono calligraphy. Unknown to her father, she used to concentrate and try to listen to his conversations with students and faculty and even gaijin visitors from foreign lands, certain in her childish belief that, over time, she would absorb it all and one day come into that world of his, to share his work, his pride, his accomplishments.

    When did I change my dreams ? Reiko wondered.

    Usually, memories of such childish fantasies made her smile. But today, for some reason, the recollection only made her feel sad.

    I changed very early , she thought. And how can I be regretful, when I have everything ?

    Still, it was ironic that her sister Yumi, so reticent as a child, had grown to become assertive and adept, while she, Reiko, could imagine no higher role, no greater honor, than to do her duty as a wife and mother.

    It would have been nice to stop and visit her father. But today there would not be time. Anyway, Yumi should be