“Keep this a secret from my mom.” Without responding, Yōko put the ice bag back into place. “In place of money, they took your watch. The Rolex. Sorry about that.”
The examination that afternoon showed no irregularities in brain waves, but revealed cracks in two of his ribs. He was told he would need three weeks for a full recovery. That evening, Yōko’s parents visited. From their expressions, Tetsuyuki guessed that they planned to use this incident as an occasion to settle his relationship with their daughter.
“Things in life never go according to plan, do they?” Yōko’s father said, looking directly at his daughter. The expression on her face was fuller than usual, but she again broke out in tears. Tetsuyuki then realized that his assumption had been incorrect.
Removing the ice bag himself, he said as a preliminary, “I’m sorry to have to meet you with a face like this.” Then he prepared himself to say what would sooner or later have to be said. Apparently amused by his manner of speaking, her parents smiled and straightened themselves.
Tetsuyuki announced that he wished to marry Yōko, that the matter of his father’s debts had been settled by last night’s incident, that he had secured employment, and that he was about to graduate. Yōko’s father had already made up his mind.
“Since you are an only child and so is she, I’d like to express some of my hopes.”
“Certainly.”
“There’s the expression ‘close enough that the soup doesn’t grow cold,’ and we’d like you to live in such a location.”
“We intend to. Thank you.”
“But, that’s really an awful face, isn’t it? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, but as soon as I walked into this room, I thought, ‘What an ugly man my daughter has fallen in love with!’”
“Until last night, I was quite handsome.”
After Yōko’s parents left, the two were alone again.
“Can you stay here today?”
“My mom told me to take care of you.”
They were about to embrace, but Yōko hurriedly returned to her chair when there was a knock at the door. Tetsuyuki supported the ice bag with both hands.
It was his landlady who came into the room. After her formal well-wishing, the heavily made-up, stout woman whose full-time occupation was that of beautician pressed him for an explanation of the lizard.
“The police detective was surprised, but I was frightened out of my wits. That’s rented property, you know, not your own house. And it was clearly spelled out in the contract. As soon as you have recovered, I want you to move out. And I’ll ask you to repair the pillar as well.”
Tetsuyuki agreed to move out on the first Sunday of April, but responded that he would not pay to have the pillar repaired.
“It’s your responsibility that a lizard got into the apartment. You knew three days before I rented the apartment the day and the time I would arrive with my luggage, but the electricity had not yet been turned on. It is of course the obligation of the property owner to see that such things are accomplished. I had no choice but to find a nail and pound it in the dark. I never imagined that a lizard would be there. Do you realize how unpleasant it has been for me every day because of that lizard? I’m going to leave it there, and you can take care of it later.”
“But, but . . . how did that lizard stay alive for a whole year?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. Anyway, since there are lots of cracks and crevices in this room, that lizard’s spouse must have brought food for it when I was out.”
“That’s ridiculous, to say that lizards have husbands or wives . . .”
“I can’t think of any other explanation.”
After the landlady had left in high dudgeon, Yōko whispered and squeezed Tetsuyuki’s hand. “That’s right. It was the lizard’s wife, his really cute wife, who faithfully brought him food.”
12
Tetsuyuki decided to tell his mother that he had been assaulted and beaten by two or three unfamiliar drunk men, and asked Yōko to inform her, using this fiction. The following afternoon, his mother took three days off and came to see him.
“You really got roughed up badly. Anyone who would do that isn’t human.” After hearing his invented account, his mother spoke impassively, though she was usually one to cry on such occasions. “No matter what, time will play a major role . . .” she mumbled as she cast her gaze in the distance out the window, and then continued peeling the oranges Yōko had bought. This one hour alone with his mother was a rare occurrence. Aware of that, Yōko had limited herself to two phone calls a day, and did not stop by at all. Tetsuyuki was eager to find out the results of Isogai’s examination. He asked Yōko to go to the hospital and inquire.
“They said that there are still no results, and that they have yet to do various tests. Even if they decide to go ahead with surgery, it will be another month or so.”
When he returned to his room from the telephone at the nurses’ station, his mother asked for the key to his apartment. “I need to wash the blood off your quilts, and you’ll need more changes of clothing. And besides, I’d like to see where you’ve been living this past year.”
The landlady had taken the key, but Tetsuyuki acted as if it had slipped his mind. “I handed it to Yōko, and she still has it. She’s probably forgotten that it’s in her purse.”
“The landlady has a master key, doesn’t she?”
“No, there’s no master key. The person who lived there before lost his key, and it wasn’t replaced. So the landlady told me that I absolutely must not lose it.” He lied because he did not want his mother to see Kin. “And besides, I don’t have anything that would amount to a change of clothes. Everything’s dirty.”
“Well, that’s not hard to imagine.” She had begun to get up, but again settled into her seat next to the bed. While stuffing orange segments into Tetsuyuki’s mouth, she spoke in fits and starts about how she had spent the past year.
“I wonder why so many of the women who run places like diners, snack bars, or clubs are so temperamental. If one day you find them kind and thoughtful, the next day they’re brusque and impossible to please, always haranguing and complaining. I always thought such a business just made women that way, but that’s not the case.”
“What do you mean?”
“Women like that don’t get married, and before you know it, they’ll be into something, whether the nightlife trade or some other line of work. I’ve come to understand that very well.”
“In that case, we mustn’t make a woman a president or prime minister.”
“No, we mustn’t. It’d be horrible.”
His mother proclaimed after drawing a long breath that nothing was easy about her work. Tetsuyuki felt somewhat annoyed, expecting a sermon to begin. But on the contrary, his mother kept all distressful happenings to herself, punctuating her report with smiles and only talking about episodes with interesting customers or about the amusing tactics of the power struggles that are a solid reality even in a small restaurant employing only three people. Only at the very end did she say, “But you know, I’d really like to be able to think as I crawl between the covers at night, ‘Ah, I’m happy.’”
After three o’clock that afternoon, Section Chief Shimazaki and Tsuruta came to visit. Seeing Tetsuyuki’s face covered in gauze and adhesive plaster, they cried out in surprise. His mother expressed her thanks effusively, then left to do some shopping. Shimazaki had apparently heard from the doctor about the condition of the injuries. Frowning, he lowered his voice. “They say that if the break in the bone had been even one centimeter higher, it would have been fatal.”
Fingering the adhesive plaster where the bone was broken, Tetsuyuki forced a smile. “It’s totally ruined my good looks.”
“If you don’t look ahead while you walk, this world’s a dangerous place.” With that, Tsuruta gave a suggestive laugh. Shimazaki glared at him as if to imply that such a remark was uncalled for. But Tsuruta did not notice, and kept on in his pl
ayful tone.
“There was a sudden change in personnel. Mr. Shimazaki was promoted to manager. Mr. Miyake was exiled to Hakata as regional manager.”
The hotel in Osaka was the company headquarters, but there were branches bearing the local place-names in Kyoto, Nara, Okayama, and Hakata, as well as two resorts. Of those, Hakata was the smallest, and the decision whether to remodel it completely or just close it had become urgent. Rumor had it that the management was leaning toward closure, and now Operations Chief Miyake was to be transferred there as regional manager. Tetsuyuki had no idea what methods he employed, but Tsuruta had indiscriminately broadcast within the company the relationship between the grill cook Yuriko and Miyake, who had a wife and children. Tetsuyuki fixed his gaze on the oily face of Tsuruta, who was a vulgar but quick-witted strategist of unimaginable abilities.
There were things Tetsuyuki wanted to ask Tsuruta, who also wanted to provide answers. Shimazaki, whose presence was a hindrance to such an exchange, took out a cigarette.
“If you light up in a patient’s room, an ogre of a nurse will come scream at you.” Then Tetsuyuki told him where the smoking room was located.
No sooner had Shimazaki said “I’m going to go have a smoke” and left than Tsuruta spoke with a smile. “You’re really a bad one, aren’t you? All that stuff about getting mixed up with some drunks is a lie, isn’t it? You’ve done plenty of things to earn grudges against you, haven’t you?”
“Why am I the bad one? That description fits you. There’s no way Miyake could even imagine that a bellboy like you could be the ringleader in getting him demoted to Hakata.”
“It serves him right! After he made a plaything of Yuriko like that . . .”
“What’s happened to Yuriko?”
“There are plenty of other jobs in Osaka. It’s no concern of mine. You put me up to this. ‘You’ll be a bellboy until you retire.’ That one phrase included a threat. It came as a shock, and I couldn’t just stay still.”
Shimazaki returned. He told Tetsuyuki to take care of himself and reminded him that the company entrance ceremony was set for April 2. Then he left, urging Tsuruta to go with him.
So, it was a total victory for the beanpole faction . . . Tetsuyuki thought of Yuriko, who was perhaps already sleeping with another man somewhere in Osaka.
“Mr. Iryō, I told you, didn’t I, to leave the ice bag on all day today?” At the shrill voice of the head nurse, Tetsuyuki quickly placed the bag on his face.
The doctor had said that they would perform cosmetic surgery on the twisted nose bone as soon as the swelling had completely abated, but after his release and return to his apartment Tetsuyuki never once went back to the hospital. He would be able to take care of something like that anytime, and had many other things he needed to do.
He felt impatient: though it was already the middle of March, the weather had not warmed at all. Every time he saw a cherry tree he would check to see if the buds were swelling. The day he had agreed upon with the landlady was getting close. He suddenly recalled having heard the word “keichitsu,” and looked it up in the dictionary:
. . . also keichū, or the emergence of insects that have spent the winter hibernating. One of twenty-four points in the ellipsis of the sun. When the sun is at 345 degrees longitude, during the second month of the lunar calendar. Around the sixth of March in the solar calendar.
Tetsuyuki tried setting the heater closer to the pillar in an attempt to hasten Kin’s awakening, but decided against that out of fear that going against nature might actually weaken the lizard. So he endured the cold and spent a day without lighting the stove.
The day for keichitsu was already a week ago. He could see no signs of spring, but perhaps they were invisible only to humans; the rhythms had no doubt already begun in insects and other animals, and in humans as well. He began to get up, but again sat down with his face between his knees, averting his gaze from Kin.
An air mail letter arrived from Mr. and Mrs. Lang. Wondering how they had obtained his address, he tore it open. Two sheets were inside: one typed in German by Mr. Lang, and the other a handwritten translation into Japanese, its small characters lined up neatly.
Dear Tetsuyuki Iryō,
We are both keeping well in our Munich apartment, which is too spacious for an elderly old couple. My wife has discovered joy in planting vegetable seeds in our small garden plot, and I have found a modest purpose in life jotting down simple verses that suddenly pop into my mind. This feeling that I have become another Homer makes me realize that the many dreamlike happenings in my life were decidedly not dreams at all. I have written this letter wishing to share with you and your beautiful, charming girlfriend one of my poor poems. Please don’t laugh at it. I worked as a printer, but my vocabulary is limited.
All things that fly in the sky
have two wings, and also one mirror.
And yet those that suppose
they have one wing and two mirrors
will at length fall to the depths of the earth.
The two wings work in unison,
and a mirror has a front and back.
How could anyone aware of that
undertake to lead another
into unhappiness?
I may make pretensions to be Homer, but I racked my brains for ten days to write this verse. I had a Japanese student in our neighborhood translate this letter for me. Kisses for you and your girlfriend.
March 4, 19XX
Friedrich Lang
At first, Tetsuyuki was moved more by the phrase “the many dreamlike happenings in my life were decidedly not dreams at all” than by Mr. Lang’s poem. But as he reread the letter several times, he became more immersed in the verse, whose literary quality he was unable to judge. That evening, he shaved, shoved the envelope in his pocket, and set out. On the way, he called both his mother and Isogai’s hospital.
“I was in the hospital with a broken nose.” Tetsuyuki candidly explained the circumstances.
After listening to the end, Isogai said, “I wonder why those gangsters quit before they finished you off.”
“I don’t know. I suppose fate was more on my side than on theirs.”
“My surgery has been set for April twenty-fifth.” Isogai said nothing about the results of the examinations.
“My landlady found out about Kin, and she was hopping mad. She told me to be out of the apartment by the first Sunday of April. Of course, I’ll take Kin with me. You’ll be put under anesthesia and a skilled surgeon will stitch you up, but Kin won’t be so lucky.”
Tetsuyuki worried that what he said might make Isogai feel bad, but the latter just laughed. “You should try being a patient about to undergo heart surgery. I get so scared I can’t sleep at night.”
The moment he hung up, Tetsuyuki decided that even if pulling out the nail should kill Kin, he would lie about it to Isogai.
It was before eight o’clock that he arrived at Mukonosō Station. He wanted to try visiting Yōko’s house without prior notice. But as he approached the house, he reconsidered, thinking that he should not presume upon them just because they had given permission for the marriage. He dashed to a public telephone. Yōko’s mother answered, and asked, “Where are you now?” He ended up answering, “In Umeda,” and so although he could see their house, he would have to kill some time before stopping by. Yōko angrily took the receiver from her mother.
“What have you been doing all day? I’ve been waiting for you to call, and I can’t do anything but wait. You have to decide on a date to move, don’t you?”
“Actually, I’m in your neighborhood, but without thinking I told your mom that I’m in Umeda. What should I do?”
“Why did you do that?”
“I guess I still feel awkward about visiting.”
Saying that she would invent some excuse, Yōko hung up and within two minutes had exited the house.
“It isn’t as if they’ve gladly given me their daughter, and it would be a bit impertinent of
some guy she’s been meeting in secret until recently to say, ‘Well, I was just in the area,’ wouldn’t it?”
Sitting on a swing in the park, Tetsuyuki looked up at Yōko, who had just gotten out of the bath and smelled of soap. She reached out and lightly stroked his left cheek. “It’s still a bit swollen here.”
Without saying a word, Tetsuyuki handed her the letter from Mr. Lang.
“When did it arrive?”
“Today.”
Not wanting her to feel chilled after her bath, he suggested that they go to a coffee shop somewhere, but she replied that her fur-lined coat was quite warm. She sat down on the swing next to him and read the letter by the light of the mercury lamp.
“Sawamura Chiyono’s intuition turned out to be wrong. In the tea hut she had said: ‘These two were not able to die here, but they will no doubt carry out their plan someplace else. This was a farewell tea ceremony . . .’”
Yōko made no response to his comment, but said in a thin voice, “I’m glad I didn’t wash my hair. Somehow I had a feeling that you’d show up.” Then she mumbled, “‘Dreamlike . . .’”
He took the letter from Yōko. “Mr. Lang wrote that it made him realize it wasn’t a dream.” Tetsuyuki spoke even as he became aware of a strangely wonderful feeling welling up within him. It was decidedly not a dream, but it was like a dream . . . It was even hard for him to believe that his own nest—if only for a short time—was a stifling boxlike place atop some metal stairs, separated by a number of train connections and a thirty-minute walk along a deserted country lane. Everything—whether the incidents that had come up between himself and Yōko, the easily imagined life his mother was living, the days when he was threatened by collectors, the power struggle between the fatso and beanpole factions that was likely to continue, the major surgery Isogai would soon face—everything was contained within the body of one lizard named Kin. Entertaining these thoughts, he touched his bent nose with his index finger.
“Kin will probably die if I pull out the nail, won’t he?”
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