I could hear some kind of background noise, which I had noticed from the first but was unable to identify, although it crossed my mind that she may have been speaking outside. In that brief period of silence, however, it suddenly struck me what the sound was. The sound of waves. The woman must be calling from somewhere very close to the sea. And for the life of me I cannot say why, but at that moment I had an image of the ocean on the Hokuriku coast.
