Chapter 14They were so alike, both so thoroughly different from their surroundings. Yet for all that, he thought, lifting the cigarette to his lips, they were still children, still girls, and their status as such could not help but remind him of his own children when they were younger.
From the kitchen, Ishikawa Genjo could hear the radio, its soft, warm whispers, and he knew from that alone that his wife had abandoned the area as she never would have left it on whilst the news played out, such was her aversion to any faint suggestion of misfortune.
It was superstition, he thought, exhaling smoke as he stood looking out the window at the street below, the two children standing alongside a capsule machine, alternately sliding in silver coins, receiving rounded plastic eggs in response, br
