The Workshop He Inherited
受け継いだ工房
Haru had never cared about old books, and he had never visited his grandfather's .
When the old man died, he left Haru a small building which stood in a quiet back street.
Haru had decided to sell it quickly, because the city offered good money for the land.
The , which smelled of paper and , felt like a museum from another century.
Tools that Haru had never seen hung neatly on the walls, each one worn by long use.
His grandfather had spent fifty years binding books by hand in this narrow room.
Haru pushed open a door which led to a darker room at the back.
There stood a wooden that his grandfather had always told him never to open.
As a child, Haru had promised to that rule, but the old man was gone now.
His hands were shaking a little as he turned the small brass key.
Inside, wrapped in soft cloth, lay a single book which had never been finished.
Its pages had been sewn together carefully, but the cover was still missing.
Someone had written a name on the first page in blue ink.
Haru did not the name, which belonged to no one in his family.
A folded letter, which had yellowed with age, was tucked between two pages.
His grandfather had begun this book long ago and, for some reason, had stopped.
Haru wondered why the old man had hidden a project which meant so much to him.
The book seemed to be waiting for a hand that had never returned.
Outside, a was coming the next morning to sign the papers for the sale.
Haru had already prepared everything, yet now a strange doubt filled his mind.
He had inherited more than a building; he had inherited a question without an answer.
That night he could not sleep, because the book which he had found kept calling to him.
He had promised himself a simple, easy decision about the .
But the story that his grandfather had left behind had only just begun.