The Eighth Day by Mitsuyo Kakuta, translated by Margaret Mitsutani (Kodansha International, $24.95, 9784770030887/4770030886, May 2010)
Opening lines of a book we want to read:
She grips the doorknob. It is like holding a piece of ice. The chill tells her it's too late to turn back now.
Kiwako knows that on weekdays from around 8:10 this door will be unlocked for about twenty minutes. A moment before, she was crouched in the shadow of a vending machine, watching the wife and husband leave. Without hesitation, she turns the cold doorknob.
Opening the door she is assailed by a mixture of smells that soften the cold--charred toast, cooking oil, face powder, fabric softener, nicotine, wet rags. Kiwako slips inside. It's strange how naturally she moves, as though this were her own home, even though she is seeing it for the first time. Yet she is hardly at ease. The pounding of her heart shakes her body from inside; her hands and legs tremble; her head throbs in time to her heartbeat. Standing in the entranceway, Kiwako trains her eyes on the lattice door, shut tight, beyond the kitchen. She stares at it, the faded fusuma, yellowing at the corners.
She won't actually do anything. She'll just look. Just a glance at his baby, that's all. That will put an end to it. Tomorrow--no, this afternoon--she'll buy some new furniture and look for a job. She'll forget everything that has happened and start a new life, she tells herself over and over again as she takes off her shoes.--Selected by Marilyn Dahl
