Strange Weather in Tokyo

by Hiromi Kawakami

  • • •

  Suddenly the door opened. I shut my eyes against the flood of light from within the room.

  “Tsukiko, don’t just stand there, come inside!” Sensei beckoned to me. Once I had opened my eyes, they adjusted to the light immediately. It appeared that Sensei had been doing some kind of writing. Papers were strewn about the table.

  What are you writing? I asked, and Sensei picked up a sheet of paper from the table to show me.

  Octopus flesh, faintly red was written on the page. I gazed at it for a good long while, and then Sensei said, “I can’t seem to come up with the final syllables.”

  He mused, “What might come after ‘faintly red’?”

  I flopped down to sit on a cushion. While I had been agonizing over my feelings for Sensei, he had been agonizing over the puzzle of the octopus.

  “Sensei,” I said in a low voice. Sensei raised his head absently. On one of the sheets strewn on top of the table, there was a lame attempt at a drawing of an octopus. The octopus had a dotted hachimaki tied around its head.

  “What is it, Tsukiko?”

  “Sensei, that . . . ”

  “Yes?”

  “Sensei, this . . . ”

  “Yes?”

  “Sensei.”

  “Whatever’s the matter, Tsukiko?”

  “How about ‘the roaring sea’?”

  I could not seem to bring myself to the heart of the matter. I wasn’t even sure if there was such a thing as “the heart of the matter” between Sensei and me.

  “Oh, you mean, ‘Octopus flesh, faintly red, the roaring sea’?”

  Sensei paid no attention to my desperate state at all, or else he pretended not to notice, as he wrote the verse on the page. Octopus flesh, faintly red, the roaring sea, he recited as he wrote.

  “That’s quite good. Tsukiko, you have a fine aesthetic.”

  I murmured a vague reply. Furtively, so that Sensei wouldn’t see, I brought a piece of scrap paper to my lips and wiped away the lipstick. Sensei muttered to himself as he fine-tuned the haiku.

  “Tsukiko, what do you think of ‘The roaring sea, octopus flesh, faintly red’?”

  There was nothing to think about it. I parted my now colorless lips to murmur another vague response. Having transferred the poem to the page with obvious delight, Sensei now shook his head, somewhat skeptically.

  “It’s Basho,” Sensei said. I didn’t have it in me to reply, all I could do was simply nod my head. Basho’s poem is “The darkening sea, a wild duck calls, faintly white.” As he continued writing, Sensei began to lecture. Here, now, in the middle of the night.

  You could say that the haiku we have written together is based on Basho’s haiku. It has an interesting broken meter. “The darkening sea, faintly white, a wild duck calls” doesn’t work, because this way “faintly white” carries over to both the sea and the duck’s call. When it comes at the end, it brings the whole haiku to life. Do you understand? See? Tsukiko, go ahead, write another poem.

  So, with no choice, I found myself sitting there with Sensei, writing poetry. How did this come about? It was already past two o’clock in the morning. What was the state of affairs that had me counting out syllables on my fingertips and scribbling out mediocre poetry like “Moths at evening, in loneliness, circle the lantern.”

  Furious, I wrote out verses. Despite the fact that I had never in my life written haiku or the like, I churned out poems, dozens of them. At last, exhausted, I laid my head down on Sensei’s futon and sprawled out on the tatami. My eyelids closed, and I was powerless to open them. I was barely conscious of my body being dragged (it must have been Sensei doing the dragging) to lie in the middle of the futon, but when I awoke, I could still hear the sound of the waves, and light shone through the opening in the curtains.

  Feeling a bit cramped in, I glanced around and found Sensei sleeping beside me. I had been sleeping against his arm as a pillow. I let out a little cry and sat up. Then, without thinking, I fled back to my room. I dove under the covers of my own futon, then quickly leapt back out, paced circles around the room—opening the curtains, closing the curtains—before diving back under the covers and pulling the quilt up over my head. Then, leaping from the futon once again and with my mind totally blank, I returned to Sensei’s room. Sensei was waiting for me there, eyes wide open but still in bed in the dimly lit room with the curtains drawn.

  “Tsukiko, there you are,” Sensei said softly as he moved to the edge of the futon.

  Yes, I said quietly, diving under the covers. The sense of Sensei washed over me. Sensei, I said, burying my face in his chest. Sensei kissed my hair again and again. He touched my breasts over my yukata, and then not over my yukata.

  “Such lovely breasts,” Sensei said. His tone was the same as when he had been explaining Basho’s poetry. I chuckled, and so did Sensei.

  “Such lovely breasts. Such a lovely girl you are, Tsukiko,” Sensei said as he caressed my face. He caressed my face, over and over. His caresses made me sleepy. I’m going to fall asleep, Sensei, I said, and he replied, Then go to sleep.

  I don’t want to sleep, I murmured, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. It was as if his palms had some kind of hypnotic effect. I don’t want to sleep. I want to stay here in your arms, I tried to say, but I couldn’t get the words out. I don’t want to . . . don’t want to . . . don’t want . . . to . . . , at last my utterances broke apart. At some point, Sensei’s hand stopping moving as well. I could hear his light sleeping breath. Sensei, I said, summoning the last of my strength.

  Tsukiko, Sensei seemed to rouse himself in reply.

  As I drifted off to sleep, I could faintly hear the seagulls’ cries above the sea. Sensei, don’t go to sleep, I tried to say, but I couldn’t. I was being pulled down into a deep sleep, there within Sensei’s arms. I gave in to it. I let myself be dragged down into my own slumber, far removed from Sensei’s slumber. The seagulls called out their cries in the morning light.

  The Tidal Flat—Dream

  I thought I heard a rustling murmur. It was the camphor tree outside the window. Come here, it sounded like, or Who are you? I stuck my head out the open window to look and see. A number of small birds were flitting about among the branches of the camphor tree. They were fast, and I couldn’t catch sight of them. I only knew they were there because the leaves moved around them as they fluttered about.

  In the cherry trees in Sensei’s garden, I’d seen birds before, come to think of it. It was nighttime. The birds would flap their wings a few times and then settle down. These little birds in the camphor tree, they weren’t settling down at all. They just kept fluttering about. And the camphor tree kept murmuring, Come here.

  I hadn’t seen Sensei for some time now. Even when I went to Satoru’s place, I still did not come across him sitting there at the counter.

  As I listened to the murmur of the branches of the camphor tree, Come here, I decided to go back to Satoru’s that night. Broad beans were now out of season, but surely the first edamame would have arrived. The little birds continued their flitting about, rustling the greenery.

  “Hiya-yakko,” I ordered chilled tofu from my seat at the end of the counter. Sensei wasn’t here. He wasn’t seated on the tatami or at one of the tables either.

  Even after I drank down my beer and switched to saké, Sensei still did not appear. The thought of going to his house occurred to me, but that would be presumptuous. While I sat there, distractedly in my cups, I started to grow tired.

  I went into the bathroom, and while I sat there, I looked out the small window. As I did my business, I mused that there must be a poem about how depressing it is to look out the window in a toilet and see blue sky. I would say that a window in a toilet would definitely make you depressed.

  Maybe I should go to Sensei’s house after all, I was thinking to myself as I came out of the
bathroom, and there was Sensei, sitting up straight as usual in the seat two over from mine.

  “Here you are, hiya-yakko,” Satoru said as Sensei took the bowl he passed over the counter. Sensei carefully doused it with soy sauce. Gently, he picked some of the tofu with his chopsticks and brought it to his lips.

  “It’s tasty,” Sensei said straightaway, facing me. Without any greeting or introduction, he spoke as if continuing a conversation we had been having all along.

  “I ate some earlier myself,” I said, and Sensei nodded lightly.

  “Tofu is quite special.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s good warm. It’s good chilled. It’s good boiled. It’s good fried. It’s versatile,” Sensei said readily, taking a sip from the small saké cup.

  C’mon, Sensei, let’s have a drink, it’s been a long time, I said, filling his cup.

  All right, Tsukiko, let’s have a drink then. Sensei poured for me in return.

  We drank quite heavily that night. More heavily than we’d ever drunk before.

  Are those boats out at sea, there, what look like needles lined up along the horizon? Sensei and I fixed our gaze on them for a moment. My eyes got dry as I stared out at them. I quickly lost interest, but Sensei’s gaze was interminably steady.

  “Sensei, aren’t you hot?” I asked, but he shook his head.

  I wondered where we were. Was this a dream? I had been drinking with Sensei. I had lost count of how many empty saké bottles there had been.

  “Must be littleneck clams,” Sensei murmured, shifting his gaze from the horizon to the tidal flat. There were lots of people gathering shellfish in the shallows.

  “They’re out of season, but I wonder if you can still find them around here,” Sensei continued.

  “Sensei, where are we?” I asked.

  “We’re back again,” was all Sensei said in reply.

  Back again? I asked, and Sensei repeated, Yes, back again. I find myself here sometimes.

  “I prefer the common clam to littleneck clams,” Sensei went on brightly, interrupting me as I was about to ask where this place was that he sometimes went to.

  “Oh, I like littlenecks,” I replied, caught up in his enthusiasm. Seabirds rustled and flew about. Very carefully, Sensei set down the to-go glass of saké he had been holding atop a rock. There was still about half left.

  “Tsukiko, please, have some if you like,” Sensei said. I looked down and was surprised to see that I too was holding a to-go glass of saké. Its contents were almost gone, though.

  “When you’re finished drinking that, do you mind if I use the glass as an ashtray?” Sensei asked, and I hastily finished off the rest.

  “Much obliged,” Sensei took the glass from me and tapped the ash from his cigarette into it. Thin wisps of cloud hung in the sky. Every so often, children’s voices echoed up from the tidal flat. I thought I heard one of them say, Look what a big one I dug up!

  “Where are we?”

  “I don’t really know,” Sensei replied, casting his eyes toward the sea.

  “Have we left Satoru’s place?”

  “Probably not.”

  “What?”

  I was surprised by how loudly my own voice echoed. Sensei was still looking off at the sea. The wind was damp and smelled like the ocean.

  “Sometimes I find myself here, but this is the first time I’ve ever come here with someone else,” Sensei squinted.

  “But it’s probably just a matter of convincing myself that we came here together.”

  The sun was strong. The seabirds rustled as they flew about. I could probably imagine that it sounded like Come here. At some point, my hand was clasped around a to-go glass of saké. It was filled to the brim. I quaffed it in one swig, but I didn’t feel the least bit drunk. It’s that kind of place, Sensei said as if to himself.

  “Hey . . . ,” Sensei said. As he spoke, his profile seemed to blur.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, and Sensei looked sad.

  “I’ll be sure to come back again,” he said, and then simply disappeared. The cigarette he had been smoking had vanished. I wandered a few meters around in each direction, but he was gone. I even looked behind the rocks, but he wasn’t there either. I gave up and sat down on a rock, gulping down the saké. If you set down an empty bottle on the rocks, it would disappear in the blink of an eye. The same way that Sensei had disappeared. It must be that kind of place. I kept drinking as many glasses of saké as sprang up in my hand, while I looked off toward the sea.

  Just as he’d promised, Sensei reappeared momentarily later.

  “How many have you had?” he said as he came up from behind me.

  “Hmm . . . ,” I was a little drunk. Even in “that kind” of place, when you drank that much, I guess you could still feel the effects.

  “Well, I’m back,” Sensei said curtly.

  “Did you go back to Satoru’s place?” I asked, and Sensei shook his head.

  “I went home.”

  “Really? Well, I wouldn’t have thought.”

  “Drunkenness brings out the homing instinct,” Sensei said solemnly. I laughed, and at that moment the contents of my saké glass spilled out onto the rocks.

  “The empty glass, if you will.” Just as he had before, Sensei held a cigarette. At the bar, he rarely if ever smoked, but I suppose when he came here, he always smoked. He tapped the ash into the glass just as it was about to fall off.

  Most of the people on the tidal flat were wearing hats. Their heads covered, they squatted as they dug for shellfish. Short shadows sprouted from each of their haunches. They were all facing the same direction as they dug.

  “I wonder why they enjoy doing that,” Sensei said while he carefully stubbed out his cigarette on the edge of the glass.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Digging for shellfish.”

  All of a sudden, right there on the rocks, Sensei started doing a headstand. The rocks were at an angle, so that Sensei’s headstand was aslant. He wobbled a little, but he soon steadied.

  “Maybe they plan to have them for dinner,” I replied.

  “You mean, eat them?” Sensei’s voice drifted up from my feet.

  “Or maybe they’ll keep them.”

  “Keep the littleneck clams?”

  “When I was little, I had a pet snail.”

  “A pet snail is not particularly unusual.”

  “Isn’t it the same? They’re shellfish.”

  “Now, Tsukiko, are snails shellfish?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  He was still standing on his head. But I didn’t think it was strange at all. It must be this place. Then I remembered something. It was about Sensei’s wife. I had never met her, however, I must have been remembering on behalf of Sensei.

  His wife was very good at magic. She started with basic sleight of hand like manipulating a red ball between her fingertips, then moved on to large-scale tricks that involved animals, until her skills were really like that of a professional. But she did not perform her tricks for anyone. She would only practice them alone at home. Every so often, she might demonstrate a newly learned trick to Sensei, but that was rare. He was vaguely aware that she practiced diligently during the day, but he wondered just how much. He knew that she raised rabbits and pigeons in cages, but these animals for magic tricks were smaller and more passive than usual. Even though she kept them inside the house, you could easily forget they were there.

  Once, Sensei had an errand that took him to the busy shopping district, far from school, and as he was walking along, a woman who, from straight on, looked just like his wife was headed toward him. However, her carriage and attire differed from his wife’s usual appearance. This woman was wearing a gaudy dress that exposed her shoulders. She was arm in arm with a bearded man in a flashy suit who did not seem
like the type who made an honest living. Sensei’s wife may have been willful at times, but she did not care to be the center of attention. That being the case, he figured it couldn’t be his wife, it must just be someone who resembled her, and he looked away.

  His wife’s doppelgänger and the bearded man were quickly approaching. Sensei had already looked away, yet he found his gaze drawn to the couple once again. The woman was smiling. Her smile was exactly like his wife’s smile. And as she grinned, she pulled a pigeon from her pocket, which she then perched on Sensei’s shoulder. Then she took a small rabbit from her bodice, and placed it on his other shoulder. The rabbit was as still as if it were a figurine. Sensei too stood still, transfixed. Lastly the woman drew a monkey out from beneath her skirt and saddled it on Sensei’s back.

  “How’s it going, dear?” the woman said sunnily.

  “Is that you, Sumiyo?”

  “Shush!” Instead of replying to Sensei’s question, the woman scolded the thrashing pigeon. The pigeon soon settled down. The bearded man and the woman were holding each other’s hand tightly. Sensei gently set the rabbit and the pigeon down on the ground, but he struggled with how to handle the monkey clinging to his back. The man drew the woman closer to him, and then, putting his arm around her shoulder, he whisked her away. They just rushed off, while Sensei was stuck dealing with the monkey.

  “Your wife’s name was Sumiyo, wasn’t it?” I asked.

  Sensei nodded. “Sumiyo was a peculiar woman, indeed.”

  “I see.”

  “After she left home, more than fifteen years ago, she moved around from one place to another. Even so, she would regularly send me postcards. Dutifully.”

  Sensei was no longer standing on his head; now he was sitting on his heels with his legs folded under him on the rocks. He had called his own wife a strange woman. However, here on the tidal flat, Sensei was the one behaving quite strangely.