A Tale For The Time Being

Ruth has just finished reading the last section of Nao’s diary aloud to Oliver. Oliver observes that “Babette seems pretty cool” and “like a nice friend for Nao to have” (293). Ruth is furious that Oliver’s only response to the section discussing a sexual assault and suicide attempt is to call Babette “cool” (293).Ruth tells Oliver that Babette is clearly “a pimp” who is recruiting Nao to join the “compensated-dating operation” that she is running “out of that awful maid café” (293). Oliver is surprised to realize this about Babette and the maid café. He then points out that Nao’s father did try to help by bidding on her underwear. Ruth asks how he knows that, and he tells her that the Latin name of the staghorn beetle is “Cyclommatus imperator,” from which the username “C.imperator” clearly derives. Earlier, Nao mentioned that her dad won third place in the Great Bug Wars origami contest for his “Cyclommatus imperator” (99).Ruth did not make this connection and is irritated at Oliver for making it seem so obvious. She says that she still thinks it is disgusting that he bid on his daughter’s underwear, but Oliver argues that he was just trying to protect Nao by keeping a pervert from getting them. They go to bed angry with each other.

Babette sends Nao on her first date with a man whom Nao says she will call “Ryu” (299). Ryu is polite and gentle, and Babette assures Nao that he will treat her well. Ryu takes her to a fancy hotel, where they drink champagne and take a bath together. When they go to bed together, Nao gets nervous because she has never had sex before. She starts to cry, and Ryu comforts her and gives her his handkerchief. Nao then dresses up in his clothes. After a while, she gets on top of him, and they have sex. Nao and Ryu continue to go on dates for about a month; however, once Nao’s hair starts to grow back, Ryu stops contacting Babette for dates with her. Nao is heartbroken and refuses to go on more dates for Babette. Babette gets angry at Nao for continuing to hang out at Fifi’s and tells her she should stop being so selfish. Meanwhile, Nao’s mom is working very long hours after getting a promotion at work, and her dad is becoming increasingly depressed. She discovers that he has joined an online suicide club and is making plans with his new friends to kill themselves. After this, Nao starts to think about committing suicide herself.

The Stanford professor that Ruth contacted via email finally responds. He explains that he did in fact know Nao’s father, Haruki Yasutani, while he and his family lived in Sunnydale, although he does not know what has happened to him or his daughter. The professor met Mr. Yasutani, whom he calls “Harry,” when he came to his office at Stanford in 1991. Harry explained that he wanted to speak to a psychology professor because he didn’t understand people very well and wanted to know the meaning of “human conscience” (307). He was concerned because he did not believe that he had a conscience and wanted to learn to empathize and know the difference between right and wrong. He explained that the interface that he was developing for his software company had applications in the “semi-autonomous weapons industry” (307). He was worried that the interface they were designing was “too seamless,” and he wanted to know if there was a way “build a conscience into the interface design that would assist the user by triggering his ethical sense of right and wrong and engaging his compulsion to do right” (307-8). The professor recognized that Haruki Yasutani did in fact have a conscience since he was concerned that the technology he was helping to design might be morally wrong. In time, Harry and the professor became close friends and continued these discussions. Since the professor has an interest in “cultural influences on suicide” (309),they often discussed the importance of suicide in Japanese culture and the fact that Harry’s uncle was a kamikaze pilot in World War II. Harry was eventually fired by his company after trying to pursue the idea of embedding consciences into weapons. After losing his family’s savings in the stock market crash, the Yasutani family moved back to Japan. A year later, he received the email that Ruth found about suicide from Harry. Although the professor suggested that Harry seek professional help, he never heard from him again.

After reading the email, Ruth replies telling the professor about the contents of Nao’s diary and asking him to write back as soon as possible since she wants to help the suicidal father and daughter. She goes to find Oliver to tell him about the email and her response. He tells her that it doesn’t make any sense for her to write to the professor that Nao’s situation is urgent since the diary was written ten years earlier, in 2001 not 2011; if she’s still alive, she would be in her mid-twenties. Ruth realizes that she has completely forgotten about the time difference. Ruth tells Oliver that she became so consumed in the diary that she forgot that it was written in the past. She regrets that Nao doesn’t know that her father was fired because of his conscience and wishes that she could let the teenage Nao know that.

Ruth then asks Oliver if he has seen their cat, Pesto, but Oliver replies that he has been missing all morning. Ruth can tell that Oliver is very worried about the cat. Later, Ruth goes to get the translations of the French notebook from Benoit.