She looked puzzled and intrigued, as if trying to solve a riddle.

  You won’t be able to read it all just yet. But stay with it. The more you read it the more it will grow.

  How big? she said, spreading her arms. This big?

  Bigger, I said. As big as you. It will grow with you.

  Her parents had ordered tuna sushi for the three of them, my favourite inari zushi for me. When we’d eaten we took our leave of Momota-san and moved on to a nearby sweetshop, Meiji-Seika, for dessert. Katsura said she wished she could do this every week.

  Then it wouldn’t be special, said Motoko. It’s not your birthday every week.

  Ah! I said. But it is your unbirthday.

  What’s that?

  It’s right here, I said, taking the book from her and turning the pages. You see?

  I pointed as if at some irrefutable proof. It says we only have one birthday a year. That means we have… (I made a show of counting on my fingers)…three hundred and sixty-four unbirthdays.

  And they are special days?

  Katsura! said Motoko, seeing where this was going and trying to rein her in.

  Indeed they are, I said. And obviously it couldn’t be every day, but I see no reason why we can’t have sushi and sweets from time to time, to celebrate.

  Well… said Akio.

  How about a month from now?

  He nodded to Motoko, said All right, it’s a date.

  Katsura clapped her hands again, and I raised my glass of water by way of a toast.

  Unbirthdays!

  From then on, whenever Katsura came to the house to hear stories or learn songs or practise the recorder or play with the animals, she would say, So, today is my unbirthday.

  I would check the calendar and say, Yes, you’re right, and we’d head for Sushi Hisa and Meiji-seika.

  One week she looked thoughtful, working something out.

  Oji-san, she asked me. When is your birthday?

  December, I said. Juuni-gatsu.

  Her eyes widened.

  So today is your unbirthday too!

  You’re right, I said. That’s wonderful!

  And it was.

  Was it around that time that I met Professor Yoshishike Abe? It must have been. He was Head of the Law Faculty at the University so there was no reason for our paths to cross. But Akio told me Professor Abe was responsible for negotiating the rates of pay for teaching staff. So it was due to his efforts that I was being paid what was effectively a professorial salary.

  You are an asset, said Akio. They know this.

  At a reception following a graduation ceremony, Akio took the opportunity to introduce me to the Professor, and I took the opportunity to thank him.

  He was clear-eyed, gave the impression of resolute strength. He dismissed my thanks, businesslike, said I was doing a good job. And that was that.

  Akio came to me one day and told me there was a plan to provide scholarships for boys who showed promise but whose parents were too poor for them to continue at the school. He asked if I would contribute to the fund, effectively sponsor a student or two, and I said yes without hesitation. (It occurred to me I should have asked Annie first, but fortunately she was in agreement, adding only that she hoped in time there would be a girls’ school offering the same kind of support). By our own standards we were well off and it was good to be in a position to help. My monthly salary was 400 Yen (at the time a princely sum). The cost of one scholarship was 20 Yen a month, so without hardship we could fund four or five. .

  The first time I met young Lee Insou was when he was brought to the classroom by Akio. He was one of the handful of boys who had been given scholarships, and I was assigned to be his mentor, in part because I was effectively funding his education but also because he was something of a prodigy. Akio had told me the boy was an orphan from the poorest background, but had already showed himself to be something special – bright and gifted, eager to learn.

  I took to him right away, and he to me (after perhaps an initial wariness at this looming tweed-suited foreigner benignly concerned about his welfare).

  Not long after his arrival, I told Annie I wanted her to meet him. He came to our home for an evening meal and everything just fell into place.

  Annie was clearly taken with the boy, as he was with her. Suddenly she was more fully alive, more fully herself, the Annie I had first known. It was she who made the suggestion. We had plenty of space, a spare room. Why should the boy languish in a dormitory at the school when he could move in here?

  She took it on, with a will. She enlisted Akio and Motoko to help with the formalities, the paperwork, the bureaucracy – the tedious detail that was anathema to me. In a matter of months it was done. Lee Insou was a member of the Blyth family, our adopted son.

  I fitted out a little back room for him on the ground floor, gave it a lick of white paint, put up some shelves and a low table we’d found at the market, a futon and quilt he could roll up and store in the corner during the day. It was both touching and humbling to see him in the space, looking around him, not quite believing it was his own.

  His belongings were meagre – his school uniform and other basic clothes, a handful of books, some in Korean, some in Japanese. To those I added a few in English, Alice in Wonderland (another copy!), Stevenson’s Child’s Garden, Blake’s Songs of Innocence. He took them as if they were sacred texts (which, of course, they were), touched each book to his forehead before placing them beside the others on his shelf. We left him to settle, to make himself at home, and the next morning Annie took him to the department store, bought him shoes and a sweater, a warm winter coat. He took them with the same acceptance and wide-eyed gratitude, still perhaps not quite believing how his life had changed.

  He clearly loved being with us, being in his new home, being with the animals in our little menagerie. His life had been unsettled, full of contradictions, and I felt the animals helped him stay grounded, connected to something essential. He helped us feed the geese and hens, walk the dogs, milk the goats. And most of all he enjoyed grooming Martha, brushing her tangled coat. He found it deeply calming, as did I.

  Lee had an aptitude for music. He picked up the violin and managed to make sounds that were not excruciating. This was a rare gift and it argued an innate ability, a musical ear. Not surprisingly then, he was equally fond of poetry and loved nothing more than hearing me recite to the class.

  I had compiled a little folio of simple poems that were catchy and easy on the ear and yet had a resonance and a depth that would repay many readings – poems for life. I plundered Wordsworth and Clare, Blake and Christina Rossetti. Lee loved them all, but his favourite was Stevenson.

  Of speckled eggs the birdie sings

  And nests among the trees:

  The sailor sings of ropes and things

  In ships upon the seas.

  The children sing in far Japan,

  The children sing in Spain;

  The organ with the organ man

  Is singing in the rain.

  I wrote the words on the blackboard for the class to follow as I read aloud. Then I read again and had them join in, reading as best they could. Lee could still recite the poem from memory years later, delighting in it.

  One day in class I decided to teach the boys Row, row, row your boat. The melody was straightforward and enough of them could hold the tune, so they sang along with gusto, belting it out.

  Row, row, row your boat,

  Gently down the stream.

  Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

  Life is but a dream.

  I was even inspired to teach them to sing it as a round, a canon in two parts. This was something new to them, so at first it was more difficult. Then they got the hang of it, the stronger voices leading, and before long, with me beating time, they were giving it their all, utterly joyful, enjoying the shimmer and resonance of the simple harmonies. Merrily, merrily…

  The afternoon sun poured into the dusty classroom.

  Again! they shouted when the song came to an end. Again!

  Life is but a dream.

  Myself in a boat on the Han River with my poetry and my flute, utterly content.

  A dream.

  For a time, then, all was well, or so it seemed. God was in his heaven, all was right.

  How long did it last? We had two good years of it, no more than that. Then it all began to unravel once again. I became ever more immersed in the teaching, in trying to write my book, in grappling with the maddening illogicalities of Zen. Annie had found some solace, some fulfilment, in looking after Lee. She had picked up a little more Japanese, more Korean, so it would be easier to talk to him. But beyond that, she was even more cut off, more isolated than ever.

  She began to take issue with things I said. One time she objected when I called her feisty, objected even more when I said it was meant as a compliment. I added that the way she objected was feisty in the extreme.

  Feisty, she said. Feisty! I speak my mind and you call it feisty. Have you any idea how condescending that is?

  I said I had thought I was being simply affectionate, she dismissed it as patronising.

  It was difficult.

  It came to a head when I came home one day from teaching at the school. She was sullen, had a look in her eye I had come to recognise. I could feel it, the anger held in check.

  I hate this place, she said. This place, these people, all of it.

  I agree the people have their flaws, I said, grandly. I find them a mixture of placidity and vehemence…

  She had been stirring a pot of vegetable stew and she’d turned, clutching a ladle in her hand, brandishing it at me.

  They’re brutal and cruel, to the point of sadism.

  Again I agree, I said, they have that propensity. But there’s kindness too, and there’s something to be said for their… earthiness.

  Their grossness is unbearable, she said, her voice rising, and she threw down the ladle, set it clattering on the draining board.

  Has something happened? I asked.

  She gathered herself

  I was at the market, she said, buying the vegetables for this – she indicated the stew simmering, innocent.

  I heard a commotion, she said. Shouting and a pitiful wailing and whining. Right there in the market square, in full view, a squat little brute of a man had hung up his dog by the nose. He had hung it up on a hook, and he was slowly, methodically, beating it to death with a stick.

  I’m sorry you had to see such a thing, I said.

  And the worst part, she said, the worst part of the whole business, was that a crowd had gathered round to watch. It was a sport, a public entertainment. There were children, looking on and laughing.

  She was crying now, and I took a step awkwardly towards her, reaching out. But she pushed past me and hurried out of the room.

  I picked up the ladle and carried on stirring the stew so it wouldn’t stick to the pan.

  At the dinner table later I told her a story about Stevenson. One day he had seen a man in the street, beating his dog with a stick. Stevenson had intervened, and told the man, It’s not your dog, it’s God’s dog, and I am here to protect it.

  Isn’t that a thrilling story? I said.

  Quite, quite thrilling, she said, her eyes sad, her voice dead. With you there’s always a story, or a poem, or a piece of scripture. But wasn’t that God’s dog in the market today? And who was there to protect it?

  I had no answer.

  Does a dog have the Buddha nature?

  Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.

  I can’t do this any more, she said at last. I can’t stay here.

  This is painful to remember, even after all these years. I was committed to teaching till the end of the year. Annie wasn’t. I wanted to see out the time, she didn’t. She wanted out, if possible on the next boat. I couldn’t leave, was unwilling. Fine, she said. You stay, I go.

  There was a finality in it. She was resolute, determined, her face set, her mind made up.

  What about the boy? I said. I can’t possibly look after him on my own. I have my work…

  Of course, she said. You can’t possibly… You have your work!

  I heard the sarcasm in her mimicry, all the more cutting for the truth in it.

  The boy, I said again. We’re responsible for him. We can’t unadopt him.

  No, she said, quietly. We can’t.

  We sat in silence, separate. It was a koan, insoluble.

  Eventually she broke it. He can come with me, she said.

  I was flummoxed.

  We want him to learn English and get an education, she said. Where better? And it would take him away from here, from this Godforsaken place.

  I looked and Lee was standing in the doorway, his head to one side, listening, uncertain.

  What do you think, Lee? she said. Would you like to go to England?

  If it was a koan, was it Nansen and the cat? Two monks were arguing over the ownership of a kitten, and they came to Nansen to solve the dispute. He took the cat in one hand, a sword in the other, said if either of them could say one word of Zen he would spare the cat. They choked, unable to speak, and he cut the cat in half.

  Poor poor Lee. Did we cleave him in two?

  One word of Zen.

  Would you like to go to England?

  He nodded his head, said Yes.

  There are times in our lives we find hard to recall, perhaps because we have no wish to recall them. To think of them is too painful and leaves us empty and bereft. Now when I try to remember that year, the year Annie left, it has the quality of an unsettling dream, or a black-and-white film in which I played myself – or a version of myself – as the weeks and months passed by, fading into one another and leading nowhere.

  I suppose I had not quite believed Annie would go. But she was determined. One day she was there, one day she was gone. (Is that not enough?)

  I was alone in what had been our house, our home, now suddenly too large, all life and meaning drained out of it. My teaching workload was as heavy as ever and I couldn’t manage that and at the same time maintain the house, look after the animals. So Akio and Motoko helped me sell the beasts to a farmer with a smallholding outside town. They even arranged for them to be taken away while I was at work so I didn’t have to see them go. They did this out of deference to my state of mind, a fragility born of tender-heartedness but verging on sentimentality and tinged with self-pity. I was feeling sorry for myself.

  I once wrote that being sentimental means having more concern for things than God does. So, Guilty as charged, Your Honour. I couldn’t bear the thought of the animals being butchered, of our old nag Martha ending up in the knacker’s yard. Akio assured me that would not happen, I had his word, and I chose to believe him.

  He told me he and Motoko were concerned about me. They said I was not myself.

  So whose self was I?

  My face in the mirror was gaunt, haggard, the eyes desolate.

  Who is it that can tell me who I am?

  I had little appetite, found it hard to sleep. Akio took to bringing me a little bento box Motoko had made up for me, packed with my favourite sushi and pickles. The kindness of it almost undid me and I ate the food gratefully.

  Shinki was also anxious on my behalf. He even summoned the courage to knock on my door one evening, uninvited, bearing a basket of fruit – apples, persimmon, pears – for which, again, I was inordinately grateful.

  I missed my lunches and dinners at Sushi Hisa, my unbirthday celebrations with little Katsura, but I couldn’t face either, thought I would not be the best company.

  Akio made some enquiries on my behalf, found an older Korean woman, Mrs Gyeong, who would come and clean my house once a week, make simple vegetable soups and stews that would last a few days.

  The first evening she placed a steaming bowl of food before me on the scrubbed table, said simply, Meokda.

  Eat.

  Something in her manner – gruff and direct, no-nonsense, innately good-natured – broke through the carapace I had constructed. The thud of the bowl as she set it down on the table was a jolt. It shook something loose, like a blow to the head in an old zen story.

  Meokda.

  I laughed and did as I was told.

  I do not know what I had expected, what I had hoped – that Annie would have a change of heart and come back to me? I only knew that I did not want to leave things as they were, unresolved. Communicating by letter was slow. Telephoning was impossible. So I decided, nothing else for it, I would go to London. I made arrangements with Akio to take indefinite leave, on the understanding I might yet return to Seoul. Akio was sad but sympathetic. He said he would keep my post open for me, rent out the house during my absence. He drove me with my luggage to the docks where we’d first arrived in Korea, and Shinki came too, to say goodbye, to help with my bags.

  Akio had brought me a bento box from Motoko. Shinki – bless him – had brought chocolate. Both men gave me books to read on the journey, Shinki a copy of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha in the original German, Akio an English version of the Heart Sutra.

  Form is Emptiness.

  They both wished me a safe journey and a speedy return.

  After the crossing to Vladivostok, I travelled by train, making, in reverse, the journey I had imagined all those years ago when we first left London, taking the Trans-Siberian Express through Manchuria, to Lake Baikal, Irkutsk, Omsk, Kurgan and on to Moscow.