Inhabitation

by Teru Miyamoto

  Tetsuyuki had no idea what kind of life Sawamura Chiyono had led, but perhaps the abundant and tranquil life of her later years rested on a foundation of the misery of countless other people. No matter how she tried to conceal such things or to dismiss them as belonging to the past, her deeds had blackened her face in death and distorted it, causing one eye to open wide. Yes, that must be it. Unable to take her magnificent mansion or her elegant garden or her famed tea utensils with her, Sawamura Chiyono had set out on a journey accompanied only by her horrifying face. Isn’t the face of a dead person the ultimate indication of the unconcealable character of a person? Lost in his thoughts, Tetsuyuki had forgotten about the movements of his own index finger. Yōko’s entire body jerked in a sudden spasm. She turned her sleepy eyes to Tetsuyuki.

  “You mustn’t play such tricks . . . not while I’m asleep.” She moved his hand over to her shoulder and appeared to fall asleep again, but at length asked with her eyes closed, “Can’t you sleep?”

  “I can’t.”

  “That happens when you’re too tired.”

  “It’s because my nerves are exhausted. I think I’ll have some beer.”

  The room was so heated that Tetsuyuki was thirsty. He took a can of beer out of the refrigerator and drank it sitting on the bed. Lying prone, Yōko gazed at him, resting her chin in her hands. After two or three sips, Tetsuyuki turned her face up.

  “Let me nail you again. Then I’ll be able to sleep.”

  “Can’t you put it in a way that sounds more romantic?”

  She shifted her body to receive him. His plea of wanting to be able to sleep had just been an excuse, but after sex and beer he actually did fall into a peaceful sleep.

  It was around noon when Tetsuyuki and Yōko returned to Umeda Station on the Hankyū Line. They entered a coffee shop on the fifth floor of a building in front of the station, and as soon as they sat down, Yōko said in a hushed voice, “I think it would be great if I could get pregnant.”

  Tetsuyuki understood immediately the meaning behind those words. Sooner or later he would have to meet with her father and secure his permission for their marriage, something the old man had absolutely no intention of giving.

  In the four or five times they had met, it was obvious from her father’s bearing that he was not well disposed toward Tetsuyuki. His was a tone of voice and an expression that differed qualitatively from the unpleasantness that is not uncommon in fathers toward men who come to take away their daughters. To Tetsuyuki it seemed like nothing but undisguised contempt, and he reciprocated with the same feeling.

  What was wrong with the fact that his mother worked in a small restaurant in Kita Shinchi? And what was wrong with the fact that he worked as a bellboy while attending college? What was wrong with the fact that he and his mother had been saddled with his father’s debts? Tetsuyuki thought that way even as he recognized how a father must feel when sending his daughter off to be married; it was only natural that Yōko’s father should disapprove of someone like him. But her father did not just disapprove of him; he despised both him and his life’s circumstances. As soon as he graduated, Tetsuyuki planned to thank Yōko’s father profusely, and then declare his intentions clearly.

  “But if he still refuses to give me your hand, what then?”

  “Even if I were pregnant?” Yōko giggled. “If that happened, I’d have to give up on Mom and Dad. But a parent absolutely wouldn’t refuse in that case.”

  Tetsuyuki grimaced at her resoluteness. He sensed something for which he was no match.

  She changed the topic of conversation. “It’s about time you started putting serious effort into your graduation thesis. I’ve already written twenty pages.”

  “I’ll start on mine tomorrow.”

  “What’s the topic?”

  “Why Kin-chan is still alive after having a nail driven through him.”

  “Stop it. It’d be just like you to write about something like that. And if they wouldn’t let you graduate with that . . .”

  “I’m just joking. I couldn’t turn a difficult topic like that into a thesis, now, could I? There’d be no topic more impossible for me.”

  “I’m really exhausted.” Yōko’s smile was mixed with embarrassment.

  “How many times do I have to tell you? It’s a hundred times more exhausting for a man than for a woman. I had to be in full command of my intellect and vitality, moment by moment either being wounded or exulting in victory, putting on an act or becoming desperate . . . All you had to do was take it easy and sit there.”

  “You put on acts? Ugh, that’s disgusting. So, what kind of acts do you put on?” Yōko moved her face closer, her expression not concealing her amusement.

  “I couldn’t mention something like that.”

  “Keep on acting, okay? Even after you’ve become an old man. I’ll get tired of you the minute you stop acting.”

  “If I get to be an old man, it’ll be too late for acting.” Even as he answered, it occurred to Tetsuyuki that some mutual acting would probably be necessary in their lives.

  Yōko opened her purse and took out the envelope she had received from Sawamura Chiyono. For a while she was lost in thought, but then said as she pulled a loose thread from Tetsuyuki’s jacket and disposed of it in the ashtray, “I’ve been acting too.”

  Tetsuyuki was silent. It struck him as not at all strange that, when they were both naked, Yōko too might be “acting” in her own way. But the words she enunciated clearly and distinctly were very different from what he anticipated: “To be quite honest, I did not like Sawamura Chiyono.”

  “Why?”

  “I recall a line from a French movie I saw a long time ago: ‘Except for murder, she’s a woman who’s done everything.’ That line came to mind when I first met Mrs. Sawamura. I had an impression that she was probably a person like that. And yet she put on an air of innocence, which was all an act, doing her utmost to play the virtuous person and pretending that she was living in a manner that transcended all things.”

  “Huh . . . Why did you get that impression?”

  “The movements of her face and her eyes were at odds with each other; it gave me the creeps. I’m not sure how to describe it . . . You know what I mean, don’t you? The feeling that someone is wearing several masks, and keeps changing them around. Even if that person’s face changes, the eyes stay the same. That’s really creepy, isn’t it?”

  “So, what was your ‘acting’?”

  “Even though I didn’t like her, I pretended to. Through my choice of words and my attitude, I pretended to adore her.”

  “Hmm.” Tetsuyuki was not surprised that Yōko had engaged in such acting; rather, he was surprised at the eye she had for seeing through Sawamura Chiyono. Just as his mother had said, “She’s had a privileged upbringing, but I think that even tomorrow she’d be able to put off a bill collector.” He was impressed with his mother’s insight.

  “Yesterday, when I opened the doors on the coffin, Mrs. Sawamura’s masks had all been taken away.”

  Cocking her head slightly, Yōko pondered Tetsuyuki’s words, but did not ask about them. As usual, the two of them parted at the ticket gate of the Hankyū Line.

  Tetsuyuki returned to his apartment to find Isogai sitting on the stairs. Whether because of the cold or because of his heart condition, his face was pale and bloodless. They had often seen each other in passing at the hotel, but had been too busy to talk and had just said hello to one another.

  “How long have you been sitting here?”

  “Over three hours.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Is that lizard still alive?”

  “Yeah. It’s the season for hibernation, so it rarely eats anything, but it’s alive.”

  Still sitting on the iron steps, Isogai said, “Let me stay here tonight.”

  “Okay. Is something wrong?”

  Getting up as if with great effort, Isogai’s eyes followed a group of children running through the alley as he mu
rmured, “I want to die.”

  Tetsuyuki fixed his gaze on Isogai. In the distant sky, three kites were being flown. As he was searching for some words of encouragement, his feelings became indifferent and he locked the room without saying a word. He wished that Isogai would just go home. If he wanted to die, he could just die, couldn’t he?

  Isogai sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall and staring at Kin, whose tail was moving like the pendulum of a clock that was winding down. Tetsuyuki tried giving him some larvae, but he would not eat. He spread his futon and changed into his pajamas. “I’m tired, so I’m going to bed.”

  “That quilt smells of a woman.” A slight smile came to Isogai’s lips, but his eyes were on Kin. To be sure, yesterday afternoon Yōko had indeed come to this room, but after putting Tetsuyuki to bed she had spent the time straightening the kitchen and jotting down notes for her graduation thesis, and her scent could hardly have permeated the quilts. Tetsuyuki surmised that Isogai’s hypersensitivity must be due to being overwrought.

  “Anyone becomes nihilistic when they’re exhausted. Get a good rest, and you’ll feel better.”

  “Just to do an ordinary job, my heart is taxed as if it had been many hours at hard labor. And it’s the same even if I’m just sitting still. I can neither work nor play. I wish it would just stop.” Tetsuyuki had pulled the quilts over his head, and had his eyes closed. “I’m sick of everything. I’m really sick of it.”

  Those were the kinds of things I said to Kin when another man came into Yōko’s life, Tetsuyuki thought to himself as he recalled that night several months ago. He poked his head out of the quilts and, taking the room key out of his trouser pocket, set it by Isogai’s side. “I’m going to sleep, so lock up when you leave, okay? You can slip the key back inside underneath the door.”

  Fantasizing about making love with Yōko had become the most effective way for Tetsuyuki to fall asleep, and it worked.

  The lights of dusk flickered between the curtains, which made him think of his mother. After a recurring unpleasant and incoherent dream, he awoke feeling not at all rested. Isogai had still not gone home.

  “You slept well, snoring away. Light the heater.”

  Tetsuyuki put a sweater on over his pajamas and lit the kerosene heater, spreading his hands over it in anticipation of the growing flame. “While I was asleep, were you watching Kin the whole time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When April comes around, I’m going to pull that nail out of him.”

  “April?”

  “I have this feeling that if I pulled it out now, he’d die. It’d be better to wait for spring.”

  “Let’s start a revolution.” Isogai spoke in a calm but strangely firm tone of voice.

  “Revolution? What are you talking about?” Tetsuyuki turned toward Isogai with an amused snort.

  “I’m the object of this revolution. I’m terrified, but I’m going to go through with it.”

  Tetsuyuki stood up and turned on the light. “Great! Let’s go to the hospital tomorrow. I’ll go with you.” Tetsuyuki spoke as if he would be the one receiving the operation.

  “In Chisato there’s a large hospital that specializes in heart diseases. In my pocket I’ve been carrying around a letter of introduction to be admitted.” Isogai pulled out a folded envelope and rested it on his palm, murmuring with a slight smile, “Every time I look at this, it feels as if I’m carrying around a pistol for my own suicide.”

  “Heart surgery in Japan is among the best in the world. Don’t worry, it’ll be a success.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. After they use a saw to cut away ribs, they’ll connect my arteries to an artificial heart . . . just thinking about it, everything goes dark before my eyes. I want to run away, but there’s no place to escape.” Isogai pointed at Kin. “I’m a living creature, and so is he. If he can stay alive after all he’s been subjected to, I ought to be able to as well.”

  A little of the meat was left from yesterday’s shopping, and there were potatoes and cabbage. Tetsuyuki switched on the rice cooker, and chopped things up. He melted some butter in the frying pan, sautéed the ingredients and, seasoning them with soy sauce and pepper, served everything up in dishes, which he set on the small dining table.

  “Stay here the rest of the night.”

  “Okay. I never intended to go home.”

  “You never really intended to die, did you? You came here to build up the resolve to have surgery. You owe thanks to Kin for that.” Tetsuyuki decided he would do whatever it took to show that he could pull the nail out without killing Kin. Tears came to his eyes. As the two ate, they thought of how to do it.

  “Since the nail has become a part of the internal organs, it should be pulled out all at once. Then you’d have to make a wooden box to keep him in, and take care of him until the wound heals. Otherwise, the moment you let him go outside, a snake or carnivorous bird would make a meal of him.” This was Isogai’s suggestion. Tetsuyuki had thought of the same thing, but somewhere in his mind a very different idea flickered. Kin was now quite alive. If the nail were pulled out, he might die, but if the nail were left in, he would continue to live if given food and water. Tetsuyuki did not want to inflict pain on him all over again; he wanted him to keep on living. Most of all, he did not want to part from him.

  He sometimes thought that he should use a saw and chisel to free Kin from the pillar, but leave the nail in him. But then part of the pillar would be chipped out and his landlady would demand he pay for the repairs. If it were a matter of a torn sliding panel or a broken window, the amount would not be so great, but replacing part of a pillar would be a sizable cost. Tetsuyuki described this alternative plan to Isogai, who hemmed as he thought about it.

  “You’d have to come up with a good excuse—an unavoidable accident.”

  “What kind of unavoidable accident would result in part of a pillar being chipped away?”

  “I don’t know. But I think you could come up with one.”

  “Think of something. It’s already been determined that I’ll be moving out in April to live with my mom. I can’t leave Kin here like this. I’ll either have to pull the nail out or cut the pillar out and take him with me.”

  The two of them came up with a few plans, but all were either impractical or were not “unavoidable.”

  “How about saying that rats chewed on the pillar?”

  “That’s a dumb idea. Who’d ever believe it?” Tetsuyuki glared at Isogai out of the corner of his eye. In the end, they got into bed without either of them being able to hit on a good idea. Since there was only one set of quilts, they had to share them, sleeping with their backs to each other. The woman who lived alone next door opened her window and called her cat.

  “This place is so cheaply constructed, I can hear that lady talking to her cat. Sometimes she even makes sounds like a ghost cat, and argues with her pet.” Hearing Tetsuyuki’s muffled explanation, Isogai sat up suddenly.

  “A cat!”

  “A cat?”

  “You could use a cat.”

  “How?”

  “You could say you had some dried fish hanging on the pillar, and forgot to close the window. When you came back at night, the cat lunged at you in the dark. You were surprised, not knowing that it was the cat from next door, and started slashing with a butcher knife in order to defend yourself. The cat was surprised too, and kept lunging. The knife struck the pillar, making deep cuts in it and carving out a piece. How does that sound?”

  “There’s still a problem with it. If it were the landlady’s cat, then she wouldn’t be able to complain. But the cat belongs to the lady next door, who’s no relation to the landlady. She’d make one or the other of us pay.”

  “Doesn’t the landlady keep a cat?”

  “No. She’s the kind who’d never spend a cent she didn’t have to. You think she’d ever feed a cat or a dog?”

  Isogai sighed. “I’m tired. And my head’s aching. There’s nothing for it bu
t to pull the nail out. Even if he dies, Kin-chan will be happier that way. It could hardly be crueler than to keep him alive this way.” Isogai’s words appeared to be speaking for his own state of mind.

  “So, you won’t have changed your mind when tomorrow rolls around, will you? You’re afraid of surgery after all . . .”

  “I am afraid of surgery. Why shouldn’t I be? But I’ve already made up my mind. It took me five years to come to this resolution.”

  Tetsuyuki felt an urge to tell Isogai about Sawamura Chiyono: about the incident with Mr. and Mrs. Lang, and about the various pronouncements she made. And about her face in death. It took a long time for him to explain everything, since he was unable to avoid mentioning Yōko as well. From the beginning of his story, he got sidetracked talking about his and Yōko’s romance and their future plans, and it took nearly forty minutes before he was able to address the main topic. At the end of Tetsuyuki’s story, Isogai mumbled, “I guess that means that if you think with your head alone, it won’t do you any good.”

  “What do you mean by that?” No answer was forthcoming from Isogai, so Tetsuyuki knocked against Isogai’s buttocks with his own. “Are you asleep?”

  Isogai finally responded. “I think that what she said was correct. Of course, without dying there’s no way to know for sure, but I think that while you’re alive if you really believe with every fiber of your being that you’ll be born again, that you’ll die again and be born again, then no matter what kind of painful experiences you have in the world, you’ll remain impassive. However, if that’s just something you use as self-defense against a fear of death, then it won’t be of any use to you. No one truly believes in this ideology in their heart. Try listening to a sermon by a priest at a tourist temple in Kyoto or Nara and it sounds so idiotic that you want to throw a rock at them. Even authors who write difficult novels don’t really believe in their heart of hearts the ideas and philosophies they write about. No matter what lofty things they write or say, they’re not able to save even one unhappy person, much less solve the problems of those who are nearest and dearest to them, are they?”