"Katzuo is at sea after being forced out of his job as a literature professor without warning. He retreats into flânerie, musing with imaginary interlocuters, roaming the streets, and reciting the poems of Martín Adán. Slowly, to the "steady beat of his reptilian feet," Nakamatsu begins to arrange his muted ceremony of farewell. He conjures his smiling wife Keiko and wonders how he lost his Japanese community with her death. With a certain electric lunacy, he spruces himself up with a pinstripe tie, tortoiseshell glasses, and wooden cane, taking on the costume of a man he knew as a child, hoping to grasp that man's tenacious Japanese identity"--.