Yamazaki, on his way to purchase hot soup, had halted between a bookseller’s wagon and a stall hung with caged birds. He felt awkward there, very much out of place, with the unaccustomed shape of the insulated canister under his arm. If this was a funeral, perhaps there was some required gesture, some attitude he might be expected to assume? He glanced at the bookseller, a tall woman in a greasy sheepskin vest, her gray hair bound back into a knot transfixed by two pink plastic chopsticks.