The Part of Me That Isn't Broken Inside

by Kazufumi Shiraishi

  Memorial Services for Susumu Nakagaki

  Right under this panel was fixed a metal plate that read National Funeral Hall.

  For a while, as I stood under the eaves and wiped away the raindrops from my black mourning attire with a handkerchief, I waited for someone to come out from the other side of the automatic doors. But no one appeared.

  I glanced at my watch. It was already past six. On the panel it clearly indicated that the wake was to be held on June 17th from 6:00 p.m., and the funeral service on the 18th from 11:00 a.m. However, there were no comings and goings around the entrance area, nor was there anyone else arriving.

  I reluctantly passed through the automatic doors and entered.

  The place was the size of about ten tatami mats with two tall screens partitioning off the left side, and when I peered through the opening between the screens, I saw a marvelous altar. The portrait of the deceased and a coffin, laid in state, were decorated with many chrysanthemums. The smell of incense filled the air as quiet music flowed from the ceiling. The seats for the bereaved were found to the right and left of the altar, and behind these seats were steel chairs for about thirty people, but only a smattering of figures—around five or six—outfitted in mourning dresses were seated there.

  In the front was a glass-tiled wall, and the reception desk was right before it.

  Raita and Honoka were sitting up straight, looking somber.

  I removed from my pocket an envelope containing my condolence gift of money and stood before the two. Raita’s face was pale, looking back at me with vacant eyes.

  It’s the wake and these are the only people who showed up? I said, signing my name in a guest book that was mostly blank.

  It appears they haven’t told anyone, except family members and employees, Honoka answered in a low voice.

  But this is so sad—so very lonesome.

  Yes, that’s true … Honoka said, eyeing Raita, but he was looking down.

  Has Eriko arrived?

  Yes, she came some time ago. I believe she’s sitting over there now.

  A line had formed behind me, so I said, See you both later, and left the place. Raita, in the end, hadn’t spoken a single word.

  I hadn’t noticed earlier, but when I faced the altar now I spotted Eriko seated in the right-hand corner of the row furthest to the back; the refined posture of her back was a dead giveaway. I approached her with muted steps and sat on the seat to her left.

  Until the phone call this morning, we hadn’t contacted each other since parting ways in Ningyocho that day.

  I spoke first, saying, I’m worried about Raita.

  He’s taking it very hard, apparently. Honoka says that until a little while ago he was in a state of confusion.

  But …

  The first phone call from Eriko in half a month had rung at six in the morning.

  According to Eriko at that time, it was Honoka who had broken the news to her, and she’d called from the hospital that President Nakagaki had been brought into. She said that Raita had gone mad and was out of control, so Eriko had also rushed over to the place. When she gave me the call she was already at the hospital herself.

  It was Raita who had found President Nakagaki dead in his car.

  Raita and the wife, Yoriko-san, had been desperately searching for him after he’d gone missing the day before yesterday, a Saturday morning. Finally, on the night of the following day, Raita discovered the president inside his car, parked in the Tetsugakudo Park. He was dead from carbon monoxide poisoning, having inhaled the fumes of the exhaust gas.

  It had been raining heavily since midnight the previous day. When Eriko called I was just getting out of bed, roused from sleep by the sound of the rain striking violently against the windowpane. I could imagine, as I listened to Eriko over the phone, the impact the sight of the president’s horrible figure, appearing in the light of Raita’s flashlight, must have had on Raita, after he’d run all over the pitch-black park, soaked to the skin in the driving rain.

  … you must be exhausted too, I said.

  She must have gone straight to work from the hospital before coming here. No wonder she looked so worn out. Without saying anything, Eriko kept staring at the portrait on the altar.

  He seemed so kind, she murmured.

  I saw Yoriko-san seated in the section for the bereaved, her shoulders drooped, and her face, swollen from weeping, had turned pale, making her look like another person entirely. Seated quietly next to her was Moe-chan, dressed in a black dress.

  Two priests entered and the sutra-chanting began at once. Many seats remained vacant; counting Eriko and me, there were only a total of eight people present.

  While waiting for my turn to light an incense stick, three more people arrived, but even then, not five minutes passed before the line leading to the square incense burner broke off. Eriko went to fetch Honoka and Raita at the reception desk, and they were the last to make an incense offering.

  As soon as Raita stood facing the coffin, a strange thing occurred.

  The flames of the two candlesticks set in front of a low table, where some servings of rice and dumplings were also found, went out one after the other, beginning with the right one; there was no wind blowing.

  I saw Raita’s back shrink. The incident caused a faint stir among the bereaved kin, as they also seemed to take notice. Raita put his hands together in prayer and after he calmly pulled a lighter from his pocket, he approached the altar and lit the candle over the right railing before slowly walking over to the railing on the left, stretching his arm, and lighting the remaining one.

  When he returned to the portrait at the front, he closed his eyes, joined his hands in prayer, and stood there, motionless, for nearly five minutes.

  I was watching everything unfold with a heavy heart. As for Eriko seated next to me, I could tell that she’d stiffened and was trying to catch her breath.

  Machiko-san. I called out this name in my heart.

  "The spirit of Mr. Susumu Nakagaki is here with us now. Please guide his soul so that he may be able to leave

  his worldly misfortunes, miseries, and regrets behind and depart peacefully for the place he must return to."

  I prayed in earnest.

  In a room on the second floor prepared for serving ritual meals, I talked a little with Yoriko-san and other family members.

  Raita had been such a great help … she said, choking up.

  Last spring, the president had started a new line of business, offering renovation services. He was basically subcontracting work from the renovations division of a major housing construction company, and what had driven him into a tight corner was the sudden bankruptcy at the end of last month of an engineering firm, which was the primary subcontractor. The charges he’d accumulated this past half-year for construction work, which he’d undertaken on credit, remained unpaid, and Nakagaki Industries apparently became short of funds in no time at all. Needless to say, he had a tough time repaying the business capital for which he’d overreached and borrowed, let alone pay the wages of the craftsmen he’d employed, so when June came he made an all-out effort to raise money. But with the bank also being merciless in its demands, it was all over for the company. On Friday, his request for a loan that would’ve served as a stopgap fund was declined by a credit union he’d associated with since he’d established his business. It was his last resort, so that night, the president came home dead drunk, apparently.

  He went missing the next morning, and by the time his family had woken up he was nowhere to be found.

  Yoriko-san immediately called Raita, who lived in the vicinity, and the two of them searched for him everywhere they could, but in the end they couldn’t account for his whereabouts over that day and a half.

  It’s just like him, the older brother spoke haltingly as he wiped away his overflowing tears with the palm of his hand. He sealed up the windows of the car with packing tape so thoroughly it was incredible, and he’d properly written three suicide not
es; an extra long letter each for Yoriko and Moe, and one for clarifying how he wanted his company to be disposed of. I suppose his mind was made up a long time ago. Ever since he launched his company fifteen years ago, he has said, ‘Bro, if something happens I’m going to see to it that things get cleared up with a life insurance policy. I don’t want to cause any trouble for anyone.’

  Eriko too was sobbing incessantly, next to Yoriko-san.

  It seems that the president had tied a vinyl pipe to the exhaust vent of the Toyota Estima he was driving when he’d brought lunch for us that time, letting the exhaust leak into the interior of the car.

  Honoka was going in and out of the room while looking after Moe-chan. Raita was looking quite calm now and was drinking together with the condolence callers, of whom there were many more starting to show up. I was watching him from a distance, impressed by how freely he was interacting with people again; it just went to show how seasoned he was in entertaining customers. After he’d lit up those two candlesticks again, he’d become so sunny and energetic that you could easily mistake him for another person.

  But I was nonetheless feeling slightly anxious about this transformation of his.

  At a little past eleven, Eriko and I rose from our seats. As we were leaving, I finally got to exchange a few words with Raita, who had come to the entrance, along with Honoka, to see us off.

  Naoto-san, Eriko-san, Raita said, bowing deeply, thank you for coming today.

  Eriko said, You’ve got to find a job again, don’t you? If you like, I can help, so feel free to let me know, okay?

  Thank you. Hono-chan is there for me, so I’m good.

  Take it easy, you hear? I’ll drop by tomorrow as well, I said.

  Yes, sir.

  I’m certain the president’s at peace now, I said. He’s free at last from this trouble-ridden world, after all.

  Just then, Raita’s face warped, making me think he was on the verge of tears, but I was wrong, because his odd expression momentarily morphed into a smile.

  Yes, I feel the same way, Raita said. He must have been fed up with living in a world where hard work never pays off—hard work carried out by people like the president and my old boss.

  After Eriko and I said our goodbyes and stepped out of the entrance hall, the never-ending rain had finally let up, and the night sky was studded with stars.

  Won’t you look at that? I said. You stray from Tokyo a little and this is what you get: such crystal-clear skies.

  Eriko quietly took my arm and we walked down the road to the station.

  Thanks for contacting me today. I feel bad about the terrible things I said last time, I said, expressing both my gratitude and regret in one breath.

  I’m sorry for having called you so early in the morning.

  And then, after hesitating for a while, she added, I feel bad myself you know, for asking for such a selfish thing that time. I’m sorry, Eriko apologized again.

  In this small exchange, I felt as if I’d gained a glimpse of the essence of my relationship with her: at the end of the day, I was the self-centered one in the relationship, I thought, behaving selfishly and being a constant pain in the neck.

  When was it that you were planning to travel to Suwa? Was it the twelfth of next month? I said before adding, I’m looking forward to joining you.

  Really? Are you sure you’re okay with going there? Eriko said, peering into my face.

  Uh-huh, I said, nodding. But I’d like you to let me stay at your apartment tonight, because I want to sleep with you.

  After we sat side by side in the train whisking us home, Eriko asked me to tell her about Kohei, for whose death Raita blames himself, so I explained what Raita had once told me in brief. Eriko seemed to have heard only bits of the story from Honoka, since the first thing she asked me was What kind of accident was it?

  "Apparently it happened more than a decade ago. Raita was still in the fifth grade or so, and Kohei, his cousin, was a high school student, it seems. One day Kohei and his parents, and Kohei’s younger sister, and Raita himself—the five of them—set out for the shores of Minami-Boso for some beach fishing, and that’s where the accident happened.

  "Fishing was a family pastime in Kohei’s household, and they often used to head to the beach during fishing season. Raita had joined them for the first time that day. With the ocean calm, the day was absolutely ideal for fishing. At the beach, there were other anglers scattered across a rocky stretch with their rods cast. Raita partnered up with Kohei and the two of them took up positions at a certain place in the stretch, while Kohei’s parents and his younger sister cast their lines from another location.

  "It was some time after their lunch break when the waves began to rise. While Raita and Kohei were having a hard time scoring any catches, the other team led by Raita’s uncle, at a slight distance from the two, had already caught a number of huge sea chubs.

  "It was Raita who had urged Kohei to come along with him to the edge of the rocky stretch. The man who had been fishing there had left, making the position available. Having seen that this man’s fish basket was full, Raita got excited and restless. But apparently Kohei was hesitant, since, just then, the waves had become rougher. But Raita persisted, leading him forcibly by the hand to the edge.

  "Before they could even fix their chairs, a high wave attacked the two. The one who got swept away was the light-weighted Raita.

  "Kohei jumped in and grabbed hold of Raita, just when he was about to drown at the trough of a wave. Kohei then desperately tried to cling to a rocky surface, but the riptide was vicious and the waves were higher than he’d expected. The two of them were flung against the reef many times and were pulled underwater by returning waves, over and over again. The trace of a deep laceration remains on Raita’s right arm to this day—it’s a wound he suffered being hurled against a sharp rock at that time.

  "The fact that the two had fallen was immediately noticed by the other three. Raita was pushed up by Kohei, and somehow the uncle managed to pull him out by the hand. But Kohei, after making sure that Raita was safe, was swallowed up by a wave, perhaps because he’d exhausted all his strength.

  "The uncle jumped in, and several other anglers, who had rushed over, also plunged into the sea without delay.

  "But Kohei was beyond saving by then.

  His corpse was found the next morning, washed up on a neighboring shore beyond a promontory.

  And that’s why Raita never eats fish.

  I smiled wryly at Eriko’s off-kilter remark and said, Maybe that’s why he and Honoka get along.

  Yeah, you might be right about that. Both of them are deeply wounded individuals.

  Raita in particular.

  Yeah, I feel that way too.

  I was remembering the word Raita had repeatedly muttered when I had drinks with him in Nakano in April; he

  kept saying snapped.

  … this thing like a cord that’s been barely keeping me tied to this rotten world until now has finally snapped …

  That’s what Raita said at the time, and so I feared, if he was like that back then, what his mental state must be like now. What kind of psychological impact was President Nakagaki’s suicide having on him now?

  I saw, through the train’s window, the darkness of a pitch-black night open out.

  Everyone dies in the end, Eriko said, sighing.

  Yeah, everyone does. I’ll die eventually, and someday, you will too, and so will Raita and Honoka, and even the currently grieving Yoriko-san. And let’s not forget little Moe-chan; she too will certainly die.

  So it’s really pointless to take your own life then, isn’t it?

  You’re wrong, I said to the reflection of Eriko in the window on the opposite side.

  Nakagaki-san didn’t take his own life. All he did was kill himself, the way one murders another.

  Eriko’s reflection appeared baffled.

  He was the victim of his own murder. Just as murder is wrong, I believe it’s a sin to kill y
ourself. That is to say, to kill yourself is the same thing as killing someone else. If you approve the act of killing yourself, you also approve the act of killing another. War is the basis of that idea.

  But isn’t war carried out for the purpose of killing people?

  No, it isn’t. As I believe I told you when we went to Hikone, war is homicide premised on your own death: if you decide to put your own life at risk—that is, if you decide that you don’t mind getting killed at any time—the guilt you feel for killing someone else disappears without a trace.

  I closed my eyes and waited for the question to arise in my head, the question I continue to think about every day.

  Why is it that I don’t commit suicide?

  I believe it’s simply because, just as I have no right to take away another person’s life, I have no right to take away my own. People often fall under the illusion that they’re living by themselves, relying solely on their own willpower, their own strength. But this is preposterous; humans don’t possess such a capability. Birth itself is unrelated to self-will or any individual gumption; while you may feel supremely confident about your own willpower during the height of your life, it becomes utterly powerless at death’s door, just as it was when you were born. So essentially, human beings, from beginning to end, are incapable of determining anything for themselves. For this reason, they really don’t have the right to end their own lives arbitrarily, nor do they have the right to take the lives of others. People don’t live; they’re merely being allowed to live.

  All this reasoning leads to the birth of yet another question.

  Why do human beings seek to bring about a new life?

  If there is one place we humans can act of our own volition—that is, demonstrate our own will—it’s in the realm of creating another person’s life, I think.

  But I can’t quite understand why we end up doing such a thing. Why should we, when bringing about the life of another person is tantamount to bringing about the death of this person? Giving birth to a person is also to murder him or her.