Yesterday I slept among bales of straw, lulled by the howling wolves and the moaning wind. I drank melted snow. My uniform was burned, full of holes and ingrained with sweat and filth. Today I am in a clean uniform and back in a bed with a woolen blanket in a heated room. I am off to visit the prostitutes with a few of the other officers. I blow my savings by choosing a Japanese girl.

Masayo, a young prostitute originally from Toyama, pours me a drink. Her makeup is unremarkable, her perfume bland, her kimono garish and the way she handles the bottle is a bit clumsy, but still she manages to dazzle me. When I catch hold of her hand, the touch of a woman’s skin has the same effect as an electric shock. I pull her to me violently and she falls into my arms. I rip open her loosely tied kimono and tear her underwear. Two white breasts spring out.

The pink of her nipples is more than I can bear. After months of solitude, I want to expire in a woman’s body. I knead her breasts with my hand and straddle her, despite her protests. My sex finds hers and I have scarcely penetrated her before a luxuriant pain sweeps over me and gently turns me inside out.

Back in the street, I walk with a spring in my step, both emptied and full of new energy. The prostitute has injected me with the human warmth that I had lost.

21

The square in front of the town hall is seething with people, and with my basket over my arm I drag Moon Pearl through the crowds. She complains about being jostled, about the price of grain, about how little game there is for sale. She is unusually talkative and strangely jumpy as she criticizes everything we buy. I am exasperated by her constant moaning, and I can’t wait to be rid of her.