by Kōji Suzuki
It was 100,000 years ago when they first journeyed across the narrow passageway of the Sinai Peninsula, leaving its heretofore home of Africa for a wider world. The ones that made their way into Europe roughly 35,000 years ago are called Cro-Magnon man. Caucasoid branched off from Negroid, and those that traveled north of India became Mongoloid. Some of these would cross the Bering Strait and eventually arrive at the southern tip of America.
From then on, the history of humankind was recorded in various languages.
Yet, the 4.5 billion years of history from the birth of the solar system to the birth of mankind has also been recorded—by the light of the Sun. Even now, 4.5 billion light-years away, the light from our sun carries the images of giant molecular clouds beginning to contract together. Four billion light-years away are images of the development of the first life forms, the primordial soup of the Earth’s oceans. And a mere 43 light-years away are images of a craft, piloted by humans, landing on the Moon for the first time.
It was the first time mankind had seen their home planet in all its magnificent splendor. Blue overall with streaks of white, the view of the whole was quite stately, fresh, and elegant, all the more so due to the vast, mystical darkness that was nothing like the night sky seen from the planet itself. Viewed directly the Sun was vile, but in Earth’s shadow, it asserted its presence by turning the latter’s atmosphere a shimmering orange.
The Milky Way: a galaxy at the edge of an infinite universe. The solar system: a star and a collection of planets located far from the center of that galaxy. And the third planet from the Sun: Earth and the life that emerged upon it, some evolving, some perishing, but always thriving as a whole.
Twenty-two minutes and thirteen seconds past midnight on December 26, 2012, immediately after Saeko, Hashiba, and several hundred others were transported to another world, all of this ceased to exist—just one universe among infinitely many, and yet our one and only.
Epilogue
Even after the scalpel cut through the uterus, letting fresh air in, the baby was unable to see the space around it. Its eyes were closed. The baby did not cry. The doctor in charge was unable to determine whether the baby was alive or dead.
The doctor picked it up, removing it from its mother’s uterus; he first inspected the baby’s skull for any abnormalities. After confirming that the skull was intact, the doctor continued to inspect the baby’s palate, its arms and legs, its hip joints for any problems. The baby was a girl.
Even with her eyelids still closed, the baby’s retina would be able to pick up the strong light of the five halogen bulbs set above the operating table. The five circular lights shone brightly down, casting no shadows on the baby or the mother. The baby had emerged from the small, ball-shaped world of her mother’s uterus and was now undergoing a baptism of light. She was being welcomed to her new world.
But the baby had not made a sound. Having come this far, the doctor couldn’t bear to lose the baby. He swatted the baby’s bottom. There was no response. He swatted again, a little stronger this time. Finally, the baby heeded the cue and let out a cry. The doctor looked around at his staff, relief washing over his features. He sighed and wiped away the beads of sweat that had gathered on his forehead.
Although he usually made sure to cut between beats of the mother’s heart, there was no need to observe the timing in this case. The baby’s mother had finally given up the moment he had cut her open with the scalpel. He looked down at the woman on the operating table. She had summoned all her final reserves of energy to give them the baby he held in his hands, a new life.
The birth was an extremely rare case; he knew it would draw great attention from within the hospital and beyond. Cesarean sections were routine these days, but in this case, the mother had been dead by the time he reached the womb. There was no need to verify; her brain activity had ceased before the operation began, and her pulse had finally stopped. It was incredibly rare to save the child in such circumstances.
The child about to have her umbilical cord cut had been born out of the womb of a dead woman.
Shinichiro Kuriyama paced restlessly up and down the corridors of the hospital, unable to bear just sitting in the waiting room. He kept looking at his watch, reciting the time to himself in an attempt to calm himself down. It was 7:42:21, May 15, 1977.
He continued pacing, unable to bear being made to wait like this, without knowing. He had already lost his wife. The thought of also losing his child too was too much. His whole body ached with the strain of the idea.
He wasn’t even sure how he should feel if he were told that his child had been saved. His wife was dead. He knew that the combination of joy and despair would not cancel each other out. The despair would win over, there was no doubt. More than that, he felt a bitter hatred that had nowhere to go; his anger was seething for an outlet. He balled a fist and punched the hospital wall in frustration.
He felt that the knowledge would drive him mad. The youth called Seiji Fujimura had merely broken his legs and was going to live. He was here, right now, resting in the same hospital. He would be in bed, his legs wrapped in plaster casts. Shinichiro had not seen his face, nor did he ever want to. If he ever met the man, he wasn’t sure what he might do.
To brush away the accident as an unfortunate coincidence, a matter of bad timing, was just too much. The baby was almost due, and his wife had been taking a walk just like she did every day. She had taken the full force of the impact as the man had plummeted from the roof of a building and smashed her head against the concrete. During the ambulance ride to the hospital it had become apparent that she was suffering from severe brain trauma.
They were at their happiest, about to have a child together and on a trip to the hot spring town of Atami. Then this man had fallen from the sky. Seiji Fujimura had crashed down onto his wife, taking her life and cruelly saving his own. Her body had become a cushion, saving him from the death that he had desired.
When the doctor had told him that brain death was inevitable he had had to make a choice. Did he rest his hopes on his wife’s recovery? Or should he make sure they took whatever steps necessary to save the baby? He spent a long, difficult time deliberating the choice, but eventually decided that they had to try and save the baby. It wouldn’t stand a chance if its mother were to die while they tried to save her.
Are they finished with the op?
Shinichiro leant against the wall of the corridor and prayed, wishing for the baby to survive. If it had gone well, the baby would be making the transition from a dying body to a new, independent life of its own. He tried to imagine what the process must feel like. He wondered how it would feel as the life functions around it began to shut down, as all brain activity went flat, as the comforting sound of the mother’s heartbeat stopped. He imagined it would be like watching the stars in the sky blink out of existence, one by one. He couldn’t imagine how lonely that would feel.
Just two nights ago he had been lying on the beach with his wife, looking up at the stars, the weight of her head on his lap. They had learned from the ultrasound scan that the baby was likely to be a girl. That night, perhaps taking her inspiration from the stars, his wife had said that if it was a girl she wanted to call her Stella. He remembered thinking what a strange name that would be for a Japanese baby.
Just two nights ago, he had been at the very peak of his life. He had completed a long translation that was met with great success. His company was growing steadily. It seemed certain that the family would have a bright future. And there they had been, lying on the beach together, making various plans for their future. He remembered the sand’s texture under his legs. The warm feeling of his wife’s body had been happiness itself.
Then, this afternoon, a suicide attempt had taken away his wife’s future. The more he thought of their happy times together, the more the anger burned inside. He knew he would have to carry this anger with him for the rest of his life.
A voice that sounded distant was calling his name.
“Mr. Kuriyama, Mr. Kuriyama …”
He stood up from the wall and saw a nurse just down the corridor. She opened her mouth to speak. She faltered once then gave him the news.
“The baby is alive.”
After the loss of his wife, he wasn’t surprised that the nurse hadn’t offered her congratulations. It wouldn’t have been right.
The nurse led him to a room where he could see his newborn baby. There she was, his child, held up by another nurse across the thick glass divider. It looked like she was crying, but he couldn’t hear through the window. She flapped her arms back and forth, and her face creased against the light of the room. She looked healthy.
He wasn’t sure at exactly what point the name Stella had become Saeko in his mind. He supposed the two sounded similar.
“Sae …” he called.
He resolved to devote himself to teaching this girl all he knew. He’d give his body and soul to give her the strength to break through into the future.
“Sae, the world you live in—isn’t the world that was.”
As though in response to her father’s words, the little baby girl stretched her legs and raised her arms into the air.
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*
I am deeply grateful to Kaoru Takeuchi for our discussions, which I found stimulating in writing this book.
About the Author
Koji Suzuki was born in 1957 in Hamamatsu, southwest of Tokyo. He attended Keio University, where he majored in French. After graduating he held numerous odd jobs including a stint as a tutor. The father of two daughters, he is a respected authority on childrearing and has written numerous works on the subject, an expertise he acquired while still a struggling writer and househusband. Edge is Suzuki’s eighth work to appear in English. He is based in Tokyo but loves to travel, often in the United States.