The Lake

by Banana Yoshimoto

  “And to make matters even worse, she died before we’d had time to live together as long as most mothers and sons do, and so I felt even more confused. I have these two different images of her etched into my memory: one as this idealized mother, and the other as a sort of pressure weighing down on me—obsessive, feminine love.

  “The ideal side of her, though—that part of her was so extraordinary, it just blew me away, and I felt so small beside her, and I know that if it hadn’t been for her I wouldn’t even be here today. I’m so grateful to her that if she were still alive, I could spend my whole life trying to pay her back and it would never be enough.

  “There was one time in particular when things got really terrible. There was a period when we were like a couple in love, lost in our own maze with no way out. We were both going regularly to the hospital then, and we were in such bad shape that our doctor suggested we go and spend some time in a small house that belonged to some relatives of ours. It was a run-down shack way out in the country with nothing around it, and we did stay there for a while, living a quiet life. It was cool in the summer, but in the winter it got incredibly cold, we were always freezing, but the scenery was gorgeous, you could always see the lake, and it was lonely, and beautiful.

  “And now those friends of mine, the people I’ve been talking about, they live there now, and I want to go see them, I’ve been trying, but whenever I think about it—just look at me, you can see how it makes me sweat. I’ve thought about going any number of times these past few years, but every time I end up making all sorts of excuses to myself, and in the end I decide not to go. No matter how hard I try, I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is that makes me break out in a sweat like this—my memories of my mother, or the memories I share with my friends.”

  “If it brings back such painful memories, maybe you don’t need to go,” I said. “Why don’t you just wait until it starts to feel right? Don’t force it. Go when you’re ready.”

  Nakajima looked miserable when I said this.

  “If I do that, I won’t ever get to see them. I’ll never see my friends again.”

  “When’s the last time you met?” I asked.

  “I haven’t been out since before my mother died, she and I visited together … it’s been about ten years, I guess. Maybe longer. Though occasionally I call,” Nakajima said.

  “You really want to see them?”

  “I really do, more than anything else in the world,” Nakajima said. “I want to see them so badly I can’t stand it. All the time. Lately, now that I’m with you, I’ve been feeling more desperate than ever to see them, like I can’t hold myself back anymore.”

  “And how many friends are we talking about?” I asked.

  “Two,” Nakajima said. “They’re brother and sister, both old friends.”

  I had no idea where Nakajima wanted to take me, but I trusted him implicitly. I trusted him with my whole body, even with my skin. When you’re with someone every day, if there’s even the tiniest glimmer of a contradiction inside them, you pick up on it. Nakajima was an uneven sort of character, it was true, but he always struck me as totally sincere.

  “All right, then, let’s go. Is it far?”

  “About three hours, including changing trains.”

  “Will it be expensive?”

  “I’ll pay. I’m the one dragging you along, after all.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll enjoy the trip, too.”

  “No, I should get the tickets and everything.”

  “Really, I’m in pretty good financial shape now.” I laughed. “I’ve got a job.”

  “Why are you so willing to go with me, anyway?” Nakajima said, looking a bit surprised. “You don’t even know where it is. I’d never be able to go on a trip like that.”

  “It’s someplace you really want to go, right, even though it hurts?” I said. “It’s only natural that I come along, if I’m the only person who’s able to help you do that. After all, you’re here in my apartment every day. We see each other all the time, and we’re together because we like being together, not because we have to be.”

  If I were really in love, I don’t think I could have said that. I probably would have tried to toy with his feelings a bit more, or maybe I would have had trouble finding the words. But all I felt then was a desire to help. And while I didn’t yet know the reason, it frightened me much more to think of him getting hurt than it did to think of someone else getting hurt. Just the idea made me shudder, and left me feeling as if a heavy stone had lodged in my chest.

  “Thank you,” Nakajima said quietly.

  The next day, we took a train headed north.

  We got off at a small station and started walking. There was still a chill in the air—it was the sort of weather that makes your face feel cold, but doesn’t do anything more than that.

  From time to time, a cool ray of sunlight shone through the clouds.

  There were trees everywhere, their new leaves just beginning to appear. Even the greenest branches were dotted, here and there, with sensuous, round buds, clenched but swelling, vibrant in the haze of fresh growth. The air was clear; I could feel it coursing through my body. Soon we had left behind the kernel of activity around the small-town station, and after that it was just Nakajima and me ambling along nondescript streets. The mountains in the distance were still capped with snow. That white and the brown of the trees rolled on and on under the blue sky, a dry pairing of colors.

  Then, at last, we came to a small lake.

  It was a weekday, so there was no one around. The water was so still you almost felt like it would absorb any sounds that reached it. The surface might have been a mirror. Then a wind blew up and sent small waves drifting across it. The only sound was the chirping of birds that whirled around us, high and low.

  “It’s over near that shrine.” Nakajima pointed. “Where my friends live.”

  A small red torii was visible on the far shore of the lake.

  I looked up at Nakajima. He was sweating buckets, and his face was pale.

  “Are you okay?”

  I took his hand in mine.

  “I’m okay. This is the hardest part. I’ll be fine once we actually get there.”

  Nakajima’s hand was frighteningly cold.

  What horrors had he endured? I wondered. Physically, emotionally.

  Poor guy. Those were the words that came to me. There wasn’t anything else I could say. I knew my sympathy was useless, but I couldn’t help it, I pitied him so deeply. I felt sorry for him for having had to find a way, somehow, to pull himself together, far from his parents.

  An awful struggle was playing itself out inside him now. That much I could tell.

  From my perspective, we were simply taking a nice walk around the edge of a lake, amid lovely scenery, on an invigorating early spring day. But Nakajima didn’t see that. He was in such pain he might as well have been in hell, dragging chains behind him with every step.

  “Hey, Nakajima, hold on,” I said.

  “Huh …?” He was in a daze, clammy with sweat.

  “Sit down a second.”

  He was obviously dying to get this over with as quickly as possible, and he looked annoyed and reluctant, as though he wished he could knock me over and run on ahead. I could see that. I clearly sensed that he wanted to refuse. And yet, for my sake, he grudgingly squatted down.

  It’s only in the early days of a relationship that we have to put up with such things. Soon each person figures out what the other dislikes, and stops doing those things. So at this stage it was all right, I told myself, I could still do this.

  Okay, so that was just me making excuses. Ultimately, I guess I’m one of those people who always thinks with her body.

  I crouched down beside Nakajima, threw my arms around him, and squeezed. Without saying a word, for a very long time. All along, I heard his breath hitting against my neck. There was a dusty odor in his hair. The sky was incredibly far away, and beautiful enough to make a
person wonder why our hearts are never so free. The wind that gusted over the lake was chilly, and carried the faintest hint of the sweetness of spring.

  We stayed like that until Nakajima’s breathing calmed and he stopped sweating.

  There was a kind of intensity in us then, but it wasn’t sensual. Neither of us was in control enough for that. I was the one hugging him, and yet I felt as if we were clinging to each other, he and I, at the edge of a cliff.

  Sooner or later, he’s going to disappear.

  I felt sure of this. However much I loved him, and as beautiful as the world was, none of it was powerful enough to take the weight off his heart, that heaviness that dragged him down, into the beyond, making him yearn to be at peace. My body sensed it. And my soul.

  But this memory will remain, I thought.

  Otherwise, what point was there in his being born? Tears welled in my eyes.

  “Thanks, I’m okay now,” Nakajima croaked, even though he wasn’t okay.

  Then he gave my hand a squeeze and coldly shook me off.

  When we had walked on awhile, my vision started clouding. I thought maybe I was having an anemic spell because I’d hugged Nakajima so hard before, and from worrying so much. I started having some trouble breathing, too. It was like his suffering had rubbed off on me.

  “I’m sorry, whenever I try to visit them—I simply can’t do it,” Nakajima said, noticing what was happening. “I can’t help thinking about stuff, even though I shouldn’t.”

  “That’s only natural,” I said. “You’re always talking about how you can’t do things. I wish you wouldn’t. I don’t want to hear that. It makes my ears ache just listening to you.”

  “I know, it’s a habit. It’s because I used to be in an environment where you either had figured out how to do things well or you died.”

  “Really …?”

  The people we’re on our way to see hold the key to all this, I thought. And maybe when he tells me about them, he’ll share something of his own past, too. There was a point in his life when that’s how things were. I do want to know. When you love someone, you want to know. Even about the things that are hard for them.

  The lake had started looking blurry, and I realized a mist had gathered. All of a sudden, the world before me was shrouded in it. The lake, seen through the mist, was submerged in a pale, milky white, as if a gauzy curtain hung between it and me.

  We kept walking. The path faded into the haze, and we found ourselves padding along with no view of what lay ahead. He’s used to walking here like this, I noticed. Even tiny lights oozed outward, acquiring round, glowing halos.

  “Hey, there it is,” Nakajima said.

  Beyond the red torii was a narrow stone stairway that led up to a small shrine. From up there you would have a good view of the lake. Straining my eyes, off in the distance to one side of the torii, I saw a house. It was just as he had described it: a run-down shack. When I saw that wooden structure, blurred by the mist, I wondered if it even had electricity.

  A few missing steps in the front stairway had been replaced with boards. Holes in the windows were covered with scraps of plastic sheet. It seemed pretty dim inside.

  Looking more closely, though, I saw that the boards and the plastic had been put up with great care, very simply, in the most practical way. Everything looked old, but it wasn’t dirty or unkempt. It called to mind the phrase “honest poverty.”

  Various little signs here and there suggested that the people inside were living proper lives: the potted plants, for instance, and the way spokes shone on the ancient bicycle that stood off in an unobtrusive corner, even though there was a hole in the basket.

  “Hello!” Nakajima shouted.

  The house was as still as the lake—so quiet I wondered if anyone was there after all. But after a few moments, someone wandered out.

  He was an adult, perhaps thirty-five or so, and yet he was extremely small, like a child. His face seemed kind of shrunken, giving him the look of a bulldog. His eyes were sparkling, though, and there was something noble in the way he carried himself.

  “Hey, it’s Nobu! You really came!” the man said.

  He had on a sweater covered in fuzz and a well-worn pair of khakis, but he still looked as tidy as the house. His long hair was pulled into a neat ponytail, and while he was a bit plump he stood perfectly upright. He made a very good impression on me.

  “Mino! It’s been ages!”

  Nakajima was beaming. There was no trace now of the fear and trembling he had endured at the thought of seeing this friend.

  I guess you could say he was acting like a man. You could also say he was a pain in the neck, making me worry so much when he was going to be just fine in the end. Either way, I was flabbergasted by the change.

  Seeing him like this, I wondered how much he might still be hiding from me. I could see we had a long way to go.

  “So at last you’ve come to see us,” the man said. “I heard about your mother.… I’m sorry. But I guess it’s been a while since that happened, too, hasn’t it.” He gave a little smile. A cute smile that lit up his whole face.

  “I know—it took time for me to finally make myself come. I wanted to see you so badly, but it made me anxious. This place is full of memories of my mother—it gets me down.…” Nakajima gazed up at the roof and squinted. Then he turned to me. “It was okay, though, because I’ve got a guide. I finally made it.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Mino said, looking my way. “And her name …”

  “Chihiro. She’s my girlfriend. Chihiro, this is Mino,” Nakajima said.

  I smiled and said hi, my mind awhirl with all I didn’t understand.

  There was something special in their intimacy. They could smile back and forth without speaking, like soldiers who had fought side by side.

  The wind was beautiful, racing through the sky.

  If only we could live someplace like that, so high and lovely, free as birds, liberated from our worries. But we don’t, and I have to confess that Nakajima was a weight on my shoulders. Not a heavy one, but a weight nonetheless. Until lately, I’d lived in a world all my own, and I didn’t like the idea that Nakajima might come to depend on me more than he already did. I didn’t really dislike it, but I didn’t like it. In short, I was ready to make a run for it. I don’t want this responsibility, I thought. I don’t want to be part of the gloominess these not-normal people exude.

  Mino peered at me, grinning, as these thoughts ran through my mind.

  And all at once I felt content, as if I had an angel watching over me. I didn’t even feel that I had to hide what I was thinking. His eyes were so clear it seemed as though all the bad bits of my personality were being swept away, just like that.

  “What about Chii?” Nakajima asked. “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s inside. Come on in,” Mino said. “Sorry it’s so cramped and dirty.”

  Nakajima and I nodded to each other and went inside.

  The inside of the house was as plain and tidy as a European country cottage, the kind you see in movies.

  As far as I could tell, the first floor only had a kitchen, a toilet, and a bath. Mino led the way into the kitchen, and after we had each picked a chair we thought we could sit in from the mismatched group around the table, we gingerly sat down. The table was perfectly square, like an oversized school desk.

  “I used to live here with my mother,” Nakajima said. “It was like camping, like in an old French film—we didn’t have much, but every day we would gather up whatever we could find, and we lived like that, very quietly. Always looking at the lake.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “It was hard sometimes, but in retrospect I had a lot of fun.” Nakajima had gotten a bit hyper, and his tone was cheerful. “The house is so small, we used to go on walks every day. Just wandering around the lake. Sometimes we’d go out in a boat, too. We felt better each day. People look so beautiful when their expressions show that they know they have a future. You couldn’
t help seeing how my mother was reviving—it was like watching the mountains turn green, the trees growing new leaves. I remember it so clearly, all that, how happy it made me.”

  Tears filled Nakajima’s eyes as he spoke.

  The whole house was still. Outside the window there was nothing but the lake, hazy in the early spring.

  To me, it was a frighteningly desolate scene.

  Mino brought water to a boil over a low flame, and carefully made tea.

  I took a sip. A delicate fragrance filled my mouth. This was the most delicious black tea I had ever drunk in my life.

  When I told Mino this, he fidgeted shyly.

  “The springs here are good for tea,” he said. “I go and get water every day, just for tea.”

  No way, it can’t just be the water, I thought. It’s because this is all he has, in this circumscribed world. Looking out at the lake, drinking good tea. That’s his only luxury.

  And what an enormous luxury that is. He’s created a world for himself that no one else can interfere with, I thought. A world free from all external impositions.

  Mino’s bearing was sufficiently dignified to expunge the last traces of a middle-aged-lady-poking-her-nose-into-everything sort of sympathy that had managed, in some mysterious way, to keep smoldering inside me, until then.

  Good tea is eloquent enough, it turns out, to change a person’s mind.

  Nakajima and Mino exchanged various bits of gossip for a while, giddy as two schoolboys. I half listened, staring out at the lake. Sometimes there were waves, and for a second it would look very cold, and then it went back to being a mirror … I watched the water near the shore, smooth as a piece of fine cloth, through the glass.