““It had been good with Naomi, that was the thing. Warm and sweet and emotionally uncomplicated. It wasn’t what I had with Midori, or almost had, but I was never going to have that again and preferred to spend as little time as possible flagellating myself over it. Going to her would be selfish, I knew, because in Tokyo our involvement had almost gotten her killed, and, despite the change of venue and all my new precautions, it was far from impossible something like that could happen again. But I found myself thinking of her all the time, wondering if somehow it could work. Japan was far away. I was Yamada now, wasn’t I? And Naomi was whoever she was in Brazil. We could start over, start afresh.””
