Klara and the Sun

by Kazuo Ishiguro

They were afraid because we were new models, and they feared that before long their children would decide it was time to have them thrown away, to be replaced by AFs like us.

Their faces were twisted into horrible shapes, so that someone new might not even have realized they were people at all, and all the time they were punching each other, they shouted out cruel words.

But when I tried to talk with Rosa about what we’d seen, she looked puzzled and said: ‘A fight? I didn’t see it, Klara.’

‘Oh. You mean the taxi men! I didn’t realize you meant them, Klara. Oh, I did see them, of course I did. But I don’t think they were fighting.’

‘Oh no, they were pretending. Just playing.’

‘Don’t be silly, Klara! You think such strange thoughts. They were just playing. And they enjoyed themselv...

But I couldn’t forget the taxi drivers so easily. I’d follow a particular person down the sidewalk with my gaze, wondering if he too could grow as angry as they had done. Or

Most of all – and this Rosa would never have understood – I tried to feel in my own mind the anger the drivers had experienced.

I tried to imagine me and Rosa getting so angry with each other we would start to fight like that, actually trying to damage each other’s bodies. The idea seemed ridiculous, but I’d seen the taxi drivers, so I tried to find the beginnings of such a feeling in my mind. It...

Still, there were other things we saw from the window – other kinds of emotions I didn’t at first understand – of which I did eventually find some versions in myself, even if they were perhaps like the shadows made acro...

it was in the rush that followed that I spotted the small man in the raincoat.

He was waving and calling, coming so near the edge of the sidewalk I was worried he’d step out in front of the moving taxis.

I named her in my mind the Coffee Cup Lady because from the back, and in her thick wool coat, she seemed small and wide and round-shouldered like the ceramic coffee cups resting upside down on the Red Shelves.

Then at last she moved. She went towards the crossing – as the man had been signaling for her to do – taking slow steps at first, then hurrying. She had to stop again, to wait like everyone else at the lights, and the man stopped waving, but he was watching her so anxiously, I again thought he might step out in front of the taxis.

her. And as the taxis stopped, and the Coffee Cup Lady began to cross with the rest, I saw the man raise a fist to one of his eyes, in the way I’d seen some children do in the store when they got upset.

she and the man were holding each other so tightly they were like one large person, and the Sun, noticing, was pouring his nourishment on them. I still couldn’t see the Coffee Cup Lady’s face, but the man had his eyes tightly...

‘Those people seem so pleased to see...

‘Yes, they seem so happy,’ I said. ‘But it’s strange because they also seem upset.’

‘Oh, Klara,’ Manager said quietly. ‘You never miss a thing, do you?’

‘Perhaps they hadn’t met for a long time. A long, long time. Perhaps when they last held each other like that, they were still young.’ ‘Do you mean, Manager, that they lost each other?’

‘Yes,’ she said, eventually. ‘That must be it. They lost each other. And perhaps just now, just by chance, they found each other again.’

Manager’s voice wasn’t like her usual one, and though her eyes were on the outside, I thought she was now looking at nothing in particular. I even started to wonder what passers-by would think to s...

‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘at special moments like that, people feel a pain alongside their happiness.

And I tried to imagine how I would feel if Rosa and I, a long time from now, long after we’d found our different homes, saw each other again by chance on a street. Would I then feel, as Manager had put it, pain alongside my happiness?

kept my eyes fixed on the Red Shelves and the ceramic coffee cups, and kept my hand, inside hers, slack so that had she let go, mine would have flopped down at my side.

‘I was surprised at you this morning, Klara,’ she said. ‘You of all people.’ ‘I’m sorry, Manager.’ ‘What came over you? It was so unlike you.’

‘I’m very sorry, Manager. I didn’t mean to cause embarrassment. I just thought, for that particular child, I perhaps wouldn’t be the best choice.’

‘I believe that girl will be happy with the B3 boy. Even so, Klara, I was very surprised.’

supported you this time. But I won’t do it again. It’s for the customer to choose the AF, never the other way round.’

‘Thank you, Manager, for what you...

‘That’s all right, Klara. But remember. I shan’t do it again.’ She began to move away, but then turned and came back. ‘It can’t be, can it, Klara? Tha...

Children make promises all the time. They come to the window, they promise all kinds of things. They promise to come back, they ask you not to let anyone else take you away. It happens all the time. But more often than not, the child never comes back. Or worse, the child comes back and ignores the poor AF who’s waited, and instead chooses another. It’s just the way children are. You’ve been watching and learning so much, Klara. Well, here’s another lesson for you. Do you understand?’

every position in the store was a good one, and that we were as likely to be chosen mid-store as in the window or the front alcove. Well, in Rosa’s case, this turned out to be true.

There was nothing about the way the day started to suggest such a huge thing was about to happen.

Rosa became so excited it was impossible for us to have a serious talk.

I tried to remind her about the Sun’s nourishment, how important that was, and I wondered aloud if her room would be easy for the Sun to look into, but Rosa wasn’t interested. Then before we knew it, it was time for Rosa to go away into the back room, and I saw her smiling over her shoulder at me one last time before she disappeared behind the door.

The most important thing I observed during my second time was what happened to Beggar Man and his dog.

buildings. I didn’t think much about it at first because Beggar Man often wandered away, sometimes for long periods. But then once I looked over to the opposite side and realized he was there after all, and so was his dog, and that I hadn’t seen them because they were lying on the ground.

But now I kept looking at them through the gaps in the passers-by, and I saw that Beggar Man never moved, and neither did the dog in his arms. Sometimes a passer-by would notice and pause, but then start walking again.

Beggar Man and the dog were exactly as they had been all day, and it was obvious they had died, even though the passers-by didn’t know it. I felt sadness then, despite it being a good thing they’d died together, holding each other and trying to help one another.

when it was time for me to step down from the window for the night, she looked so tired and serious I decided to say nothing.

The Sun was pouring his nourishment onto the street and into the buildings, and when I looked over to the spot where Beggar Man and the dog had died, I saw they weren’t dead at all – that a special kind of nourishment from the Sun had saved them.

‘What’s important,’ the food blending woman said, ‘is that this next generation learn how to be comfortable with every sort of person. That’s what Peter always says.’

‘Did his folks just … decide not to go ahead? Lose their nerve?’

The Mother’s kind smile vanished and everyone who’d heard see...

‘It’s okay,’ the Mother said. ‘Please forget it.’

‘It’s our worst fear,’ a firmer voice nearby said. ‘Every one of us here.’ ‘It’s okay,’ the Mother said. ‘Let’s leave it.’

‘I only meant a nice boy like that …’

‘Some of us were lucky, some of ...

‘But Josie’s fine now, isn’t she?’ another voice asked. ‘She looks so much better.’