Asleep

by Banana Yoshimoto

  An unbearable sadness had just started to wind itself around me when the phone rang. I knew it wasn't my boyfriend, but I figured that since I was up I might as well answer it anyway. And so I did.

  It was a friend of mine from college. She was calling to ask if I'd be interested in doing a little work. The company she worked for was having a trade show the following week, would I like to be a hostess? All kinds of people were always calling me up with offers like this.

  I was on the verge of declining the offer—the refusal had made it as far as the base of my throat—when for some reason I blurted out, “Sure.” Maybe I'd been scared by the coincidence of her calling so soon after the incident in the park, I don't know. I regretted having agreed as soon as I spoke, regretted it ferociously, but there was nothing I could do. My friend was delighted, and she'd already started rattling on, telling me where she thought we should meet and what sort of work I'd be doing. I gave up whatever hope I'd had of resisting and started jotting down what she said.

  I was still just as sleepy as I'd been before.

  Get up early in the morning, get myself ready, leave the apartment. It should have been perfectly simple, but I'd been holed up inside for so long just waiting for the telephone to ring that it was actually extremely grueling. There were only three days of training and then three days of actual work, but it was so hard I could barely stand it. I felt sleepy no matter what I was doing, so sleepy that I always felt like I was on the verge of disintegrating. I was mixed in with a bunch of other young women my age, and I had to remember all kinds of things at once; I had to memorize the blurbs explaining the products, and I spent the whole time on my feet—and every bit of this weighed down on me so much that it felt like a bad dream. I didn't even have time to think. Yes, I regretted agreeing to do that work more than I can say.

  But even in that very brief period of time I was made abundantly aware of the extent to which various things inside me had degenerated without my even knowing it. I'd always hated working, and I'd never cared much about the kinds of jobs I took or whether I had one or not or anything like that, and none of that had changed at all, it wasn't that . . . it was something like guts, the ability to move on to the next thing when I had to, it was something like hope, like anticipation. . . . I can't explain it very well. But I feel sure that this something I'd unknowingly cast aside was the same thing that Shiori had lost, was what she'd cast aside herself, also without noticing. Maybe if she'd been lucky she could have gone on living anyway, just as she was. But she was too weak, she couldn't endure a life like that. The flow was so strong that it swallowed her whole.

  I'm not saying that I'd gotten a handle on my life or anything. It's just that there was something much more lively about forcing myself to get up at seven every morning, and then dashing out of my apartment and bullying my tired heart and mind and body all day, than there was in the pain I felt when I stayed cooped up in my apartment, bathed in sleep. I was so worn out that I couldn't even talk, and only managed to keep up my end of the conversation about once every three times my boyfriend called, yet the extent of my exhaustion was such that even this didn't concern me. The thought that when these six days were over I might go back to being nothing but a sleeping woman scared me so much that everything would go black. I did my best not to think about it. There were even times when I wouldn't think about my boyfriend, not at all. It was pretty unbelievable. Then, as time passed, I began to sense that the sleepiness I'd felt—sleepiness so fierce it was almost amusing—was gradually, ever so gradually, draining from my body. My feet were swollen, my room got all messy, dark pockets formed under my eyes. I didn't particularly want the money, the work was pointless, and so it was extremely difficult.

  The strange dream I'd had at daybreak that morning in the park was the one thing that kept me going through all this. Each morning at seven o'clock my alarm would go off and my stereo would switch on and I'd lie there in the midst of all that noise thinking what a pain everything was, and how I was so tired I could die, and that I might as well give up now . . . and then my thoughts would wander back to that daybreak, and I'd get this vague feeling that I was betraying that girl, and then I felt like I just couldn't give up. For someone as cowardly and as lazy as I am, I think I did a pretty good job of hanging in there. But those eyes, those ever so distant, sorrow-filled eyes . . . however hard I tried, I just couldn't forget them.

  Come to think of it, I met my boyfriend on the job.

  The place was this sort of office, really big, that designed things. It took up an enormous amount of space in this huge building, a whole floor, and there were all sorts of different sections. I didn't know much about what they were doing or how they were doing it or anything—basically my job was to answer the phone and type out stuff and punch data into the computer and make copies and deliver messages and so on. I think there were probably more than ten of us doing the same kind of work.

  I'd been hired as a replacement for a cousin of mine who'd gone to stay with a family in the United States, so I was only there for three months, but even so I did my best to give people the impression that I was a bit of a fool. It's not that I'm particularly clever or anything, but I know that if you work too hard in a place like that, your workload just gets heavier and heavier and you end up losing a lot more than you gain. So I elected not to do very much. There's nothing as senseless as being harried at a simple do-what's-needed part-time job. So I worked in a sort of haze the whole time, keeping only about one third of my circuits open. As a result I'd show up late and make mistakes, enter data into the wrong columns, send out perfectly blank faxes, that kind of thing, and even though none of this was on purpose I still ended up doing each of these things about once every three days, so that soon people stopped asking me to do anything at all difficult and my work got a whole lot easier.

  It happened one Sunday. The company had a vacation, but I'd gone in on my own to fix a mistake I'd made the day before. I was all alone in the spacious, silent office. I was typing in some data, taking my time, when all of a sudden I started feeling inexplicably uneasy.

  I had this sense that at some point during my two months of acting the fool I'd actually become one—that it might not be possible for me to work any faster. It was a stupid thing to get worked up about, but at the time it seemed very serious. The longer I stared at the computer's green screen the more I worried. I'd thought I was only keeping my talents hidden, but in fact office work is probably one of those things that I just can't do. I struggled to keep myself from thinking about it, but I couldn't. And then—conscious all the while of how idiotic I was being—I found myself being lured on by an irresistible temptation to see what I could do. I'd seen that there was no one else in the office. And so the race began. Thinking back on that day now, I can see that I was still awfully young then. I started typing in all the data I had in front of me with a truly incredible vigor. For the first time in ages I relished the sensation of having my hands move with speed and accuracy, of knowing that I could do this if I tried, and I felt wonderfully contented. Before long I'd finished the corrections I'd been working on, and so—riding the crest of my energy—I decided to prepare a few of the forms that had started piling up. I began typing things into the word processor, humming as I worked. I felt like someone who'd just been granted permission to use her right hand again after being forced for ages and ages to use only her left. I guess a sort of stress must have been building up inside me all along, because I was truly thrilled with the gorgeous pages of text that emerged from the printer. Photocopying requires almost no time at all when you take it seriously. I lost myself in the work and ended up doing all kinds of little tasks that were meant to be done by others.

  After about two hours of work I'd finished everything, so I heaved a heavy sigh and stood up from my desk—and then I saw him. He was sitting quietly at a desk all the way in the very back of the empty, bright room. It was a terrible shock. I hadn't noticed him at all. He wasn't my boss or anything lik
e that, but he worked in a section that I helped out in fairly often. He certainly knew how utterly useless I'd been as a worker. Damn, I thought. It looked as if he'd been waiting to see when I'd notice him, looking forward to that moment with a good deal of pleasure. He was grinning.

  “Have you been here all along, then?” I said.

  “Obviously you can work if you try . . . and yet somehow I don't even feel like pointing that out,” he said.

  And then he was laughing so hard he almost fell off his chair.

  We went to get some tea after that. The café we chose was a small one across from our building. It was near twilight already, and there were a few other couples besides us in the shop, having some fun on their day off. Everyone was speaking very quietly, almost whispering.

  “You know, earlier, it was like watching you with the film speeded up. Why don't you always work like that?” he asked.

  I considered various answers, trying to come up with something witty, but in the end all I could say was, “It's just a temp job.”

  “That makes sense,” he said, and chuckled again for a few moments. I was continually surprised at how pure his deep voice sounded when he was talking as a regular person rather than a coworker, and by the perfect coordination of his gestures. I'd never looked at him with much attention before. I'd noticed the ring that he wore on his left hand by then. But we drank our tea without talking about any of that stuff. To tell the truth I was terribly disappointed to see that he was married.

  Once, as he was recrossing his legs, he bumped one of the saucers on the table and made a clatter. He was more apologetic than he needed to be. He kept saying, “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.”

  I really fall for that kind of thing, for good manners. I have this feeling that people like that never do anything truly awful to anyone else. But then on the other hand, you might say that I fall for people who can do awful things and get away with it.

  We weren't particularly nervous, but still we didn't talk much. He was extremely decorous, and his profile made a very peculiar impression on me, and every so often he'd start telling me about this or that or something else. I just nodded and listened. And as I nodded I had this vague sort of intuition that he was going to be someone who'd take on a great significance in my life. It was evening and yet it seemed like morning—maybe that's why I felt this way. It was as if we were sitting around some table still half asleep, hardly speaking, that's the kind of scene it was. I imagined all kinds of warm, pleasant things that might happen between us in the future, but for some reason everything ended up turning into an image of winter. A white room filled with steam, the two of us walking along wearing coats, a wintry grove of trees. Everything I saw was like that. And this made me terribly sad.

  Somehow or other that seemingly eternal week passed. I arrived back at my apartment after the last day of work and took off my clothes, just letting them lie where they fell, then chucked the envelope that held my salary on the floor and stood there giggling. And then the phone rang.

  “Hey. It's me, Mr. Iwanaga,” he said.

  I felt a kind of nostalgia when I heard his voice.

  “I haven't heard from you in a while,” I said.

  “Were you asleep?”

  “Nope. As a matter of fact I was just standing here looking down at the envelope with my salary in it and laughing. I'm so exhausted!”

  “You mean you've been working? You really are odd.”

  “Helps to pass the time,” I said.

  It occurred to me that after I'd picked up the clothes that were scattered around the room I would just go ahead and sleep as long as I liked. My head was clear, my body was completely worn out. This time it wouldn't frighten me a bit even if I slept for an entire day.

  “You sure sound lively. Like when we first met.”

  His voice was bright. Even he'd gotten caught up in the mood.

  “Now that you mention it, it's true, isn't it?” I said, scraping little flakes of worn-out nail polish off my fingernails. “By the way . . . your wife was in high school when you met her, wasn't she? And she had long hair?”

  “How'd you know? Did you learn to read minds at your job or something?” He sounded suspicious. “But you're right. She was eighteen.”

  “I thought so,” I said.

  Suddenly my eyes filled with tears. Even I didn't really understand why I was crying. “Anyway . . .” he said. Then he started telling me where we should meet for that eel dinner we'd planned, and for the fireworks. As I listened to his voice and scribbled out a note to myself, my hand and the whole room and everything in it became a hot blur, vaguely bright, shining.

  The broad avenue that led down to the riverbank was already closed to traffic. People had spread out until they filled the entire street, and they were walking on toward the river, the fireworks. Everyone was dressed in light cotton kimonos, and they were carrying their kids up on their shoulders, and they were glancing up at the sky, laughing and making noise, and the crowd streamed on like it does at the huge Gion Festival in Kyoto, everyone moving in the same direction. I'd never seen anything like it. I felt a sort of excitement—a great rush. No one had any idea when the fireworks would finally unwind across the sky we were all watching, so we were all filled with expectation. Every face I saw was bright and cheerful.

  “There's no way we'll make it to the river. Look at the crowds.”

  My boyfriend sounded disappointed. I looked up at his sweaty face.

  “That's okay. We'll be able to see at least a little, right?” I said.

  “Maybe not. We'd have to be somewhere high up.”

  “Well, it doesn't matter. As long as we can hear them.”

  If I stood on tiptoe I could see that ahead of us there was a line of people waiting to cross the bridge, and that around the end of the line a massive crowd had gathered. The night sky was bathed in deep indigo, and it was incredibly wide. Police officers stood here and there in the dark. People pressed on as if they were being channeled along by ropes. But my boyfriend and I stopped before we'd even reached the end of the line.

  What was important wasn't the fireworks, it was that we were together this evening, together in this place, looking up into the sky at the same time. It was important that we link our arms and turn our faces up so that we were looking in the same direction as the people around us, and listen to the huge boomings of the fireworks. The rising energy of the crowd prodded me into a state of jittery excitement. At some point along the way my boyfriend had started wanting to see the display, too, really wanting to see it, and looking up at his face I could tell that he could hardly wait for it to start, and somehow it seemed like he'd become young again.

  I think that at some point along the way the feeling of being healthy must have come back to me. Even if all this has been nothing but the story of a few small waves that shook me when I lost my friend and wore myself out doing all the little things one does every day, even if all this was nothing but the story of a small resurrection, it still makes me think that people are very strong. I can't remember anymore whether this kind of thing ever happened to me back in the old days, but I know that when I turned to confront the darkness inside me, when somewhere way down deep inside I was really hurting, when I was utterly exhausted, all of a sudden a totally unexpected and inexplicable strength came gushing up within me.

  Nothing has changed in me and nothing has changed between us. Yet all along I felt positive that I wanted to go on being with him, wanted to keep being shaken by those little waves. I've made my way through the worst of it now. I'm not too clear on what that “worst” was, but that's how I feel. With things as they are now, I might even be able to start liking someone else.

  But I didn't think I would. No, I just wanted to recapture the incredibly vivid love we'd had at first—the love I'd shared with the tall man standing next to me, with the man I adored. I wanted to hold everything in place with my thin little arm and my weak spirit. I wanted to do what I could with my unreliable body to
try and deal with all the many scary things that were going to start happening to us from now on. I wanted to try.

  I felt like I'd just woken up a moment ago, and everything looked so clear and beautiful it was frightening. Everything really was gorgeous. Those crowds of people walking through the night, the light from the paper lanterns dotting the arcade, the line of my boyfriend's forehead as he gazed straight up, eager for the fireworks to start, as we stood there in the slightly cool wind—it was all so beautiful.

  Suddenly everything seemed too perfect, and tears welled up in my eyes. Everything my gaze encountered as I looked around at the scene before us felt precious to me, and I was happy that when I'd finally woken up it had been now and here. This street was usually filled with cars, but now it had turned into a vast wide-open space, and we were standing in the middle, waiting to see the fireworks, and later we'd go and have our eel dinner, and then fall asleep, lying side by side. . . . It occurred to me how splendid it was to be able to look around at this night—this night, when we could do all these things—with a mind and a spirit so marvelously clear.

  I felt almost like I was praying.

  May every sleep in this world be equally peaceful.

  Finally a huge boom tumbled through the sky, and over to one side of an enormous building half a ring of fireworks flickered into view, tinting the blackness for just an instant with all its colors, like a design seen through lace.

  “Wow! Did you see that? I could only see a little, but . . .”

  He spoke out of sympathy for me, because I'm short, but at the same time he was as thrilled as a child. He gave my shoulder a little shake.